Energy-normalized angular momentum for a Schwarzschild geodesic
ID: energy-normalized-angular-momentum-for-a-schwarzschild-geodesic
For an unbound equatorial Schwarzschild spacetime geodesic, let and be its conserved energy and angular momentum measured relative to infinity. The ratio has dimensions of area divided by time. For a massive test particle, and , so , where is specific angular momentum and the impact parameter. For a photon, and , giving without assigning a finite Lorentz factor or a proper time to the photon. This ratio removes the arbitrary normalization of a null affine parameter.
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