Paper 4, Section II, D
Part II, 2009
The Schwarzschild metric is given by
where is the mass in gravitational units. By using the radial component of the geodesic equations, or otherwise, show for a particle moving on a geodesic in the equatorial plane with constant that
Show that such an orbit is stable for .
An astronaut circles the Earth freely for a long time on a circular orbit of radius , while the astronaut's twin remains motionless on Earth, which is assumed to be spherical, with radius , and non-rotating. Show that, on returning to Earth, the astronaut will be younger than the twin only if .