Timescales of the chaos onset in the general relativistic Poynting-Robertson effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates the timescales at which chaos begins in the general relativistic Poynting-Robertson effect around Kerr black holes, using Lyapunov exponents to connect theoretical chaos onset with potential astrophysical observations.

Contribution

It introduces a method to quantify chaos onset timescales in relativistic radiation effects, linking theoretical predictions to observable astrophysical phenomena.

Findings

Chaos occurs within specific parameter ranges in Kerr spacetime.

Lyapunov exponents effectively estimate chaos onset times.

Potential observational signatures in neutron star and black hole systems.

Abstract

It has been proved that the general relativistic Poynting-Robertson effect in the equatorial plane of Kerr metric shows a chaotic behavior for a suitable range of parameters. As a further step, we calculate the timescale for the onset of chaos through the Lyapunov exponents, estimating how this trend impacts on the observational dynamics. We conclude our analyses with a discussion on the possibility to observe this phenomenon in neutron star and black hole astrophysical sources.