Spinoptics in the Schwarzschild spacetime

Abstract We study spinoptics equations in the Schwarzschild spacetime. We demonstrate that using the explicit and hidden symmetries of this metric one can explicitly solve the equations for complex null tetrad associated with null rays representing photon's and graviton's motion. This allows one to integrate the spinoptics equations both for the electromagnetic and gravitational waves. It is shown that the main effect of the interaction of the spin of these fields with the spacetime curvature is the tilt of the asymptotic planes of the massless particle orbit. The corresponding tilting angle is calculated. It is shown that this angle grows when a null ray passes in the vicinity of the circular null orbit located at r =3 M .