We derive a Hamiltonian for an extended spinning test-body in a curved background spacetime, to quadratic order in the spin, in terms of three-dimensional position, momentum, and spin variables having canonical Poisson brackets. This requires a careful analysis of how changes of the spin supplementary condition are related to shifts of the body's representative worldline and transformations of the body's multipole moments, and we employ bitensor calculus for a precise framing of this analysis. We apply the result to the case of the Kerr spacetime and thereby compute an explicit canonical Hamiltonian for the test-body limit of the spinning two-body problem in general relativity, valid for generic orbits and spin orientations, to quadratic order in the test spin. This fully relativistic Hamiltonian is then expanded in post-Newtonian orders and in powers of the Kerr spin parameter, allowing comparisons with the test-mass limits of available post-Newtonian results. Both the fully relativistic Hamiltonian and the results of its expansion can inform the construction of waveform models, especially effective-one-body models, for the analysis of gravitational waves from compact binaries.

In this paper we report the results of a thorough numerical study of the motion of spinning particles in Kerr spacetime with different prescriptions. We first evaluate the Mathisson-Papapetrou equations with two different spin supplementary conditions, namely, the Tulczyjew and the Newton-Wigner, and make a comparison of these two cases. We then use the Hamiltonian formalism given by Barausse, Racine, and Buonanno [Phys. Rev. D 80, 104025 (2009)] to evolve the orbits and compare them with the corresponding orbits provided by the Mathisson-Papapetrou equations. We include a full description of how to treat the issues arising in the numerical implementation.

This work is concerned with suitable choices of tetrad fields and coordinate systems for the Hamiltonian formalism of a spinning particle derived in [E. Barausse, E. Racine, and A. Buonanno, Phys. Rev. D 80, 104025 (2009)]. After demonstrating that with the originally proposed tetrad field the components of the total angular momentum are not preserved in the Schwarzschild limit, we analyze other hitherto proposed tetrad choices. Then, we introduce and thoroughly test two new tetrad fields in the horizon penetrating Kerr-Schild coordinates. Moreover, we show that for the Schwarzschild spacetime background the linearized in spin Hamiltonian corresponds to an integrable system, while for the Kerr spacetime we find chaos which suggests a nonintegrable system. PACS numbers: 04.25.-g, 05.45.-a Keywords:with the relations given in (8) and (15). Therewith we obtainfor the components of the total angular momentum, with which we may now compute the evolution equations for J i via the Dirac brackets with the Hamiltonian. Indeed, they result in {J x , H} DB = O S 2 , {J y , H} DB = O S 2 , {J z , H} DB = 0 , and J 2 x + J 2 y + J 2 z , H DB = O S 2 .

It has been established in Schwarzschild spacetime (and more generally in Kerr spacetime) that pairs of geometrically different timelike geodesics with the same radial and azimuthal frequencies exist in the strong field regime. The occurrence of this socalled isofrequency pairing is of relevance in view of gravitational-wave observations. In this paper we generalize the results on isofrequency pairing in two directions. Firstly, we allow for a (positive) cosmological constant, i.e., we replace the Schwarzschild spacetime with the Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime. Secondly, we consider not only spinless test-particles (i.e., timelike geodesics) but also test-particles with spin. In the latter case we restrict to the case that the motion is in the equatorial plane with the spin perpendicular to this plane. We find that the cosmological constant as well as the spin have distinct impacts on the description of bound motion in the frequency domain.