English

Thomas precession, relativistic torque, and non-planar orbits

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2024-12-31 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We analyze the angular momentum balance for a particle undergoing Thomas precession. The relationships among relativistic torque, the center of mass, and the center of inertia for a spinning particle are clarified. We show that spin precession is accompanied by orbital angular momentum precession, and present examples of the resulting out-of-plane motion.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.20319,
  title  = {Thomas precession, relativistic torque, and non-planar orbits},
  author = {Andrzej Czarnecki and Andrei Zelnikov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.20319},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:50:54.311Z