NEWTONIAN TIDAL EFFECT

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Post date: 20 Jan 2023.
As a prelude to analyzing geodesic deviation in general relativity, we’ll
look at the tidal effect in Newtonian physics. First, though, what is geo-
desic deviation? A geodesic curve is a curve followed by an object in the
absence of any forces (we’re not considering gravity as a force here since its
effects define the curvature of spacetime through which the object moves).
Unless spacetime is flat, two objects initially following parallel geodesics
will accelerate towards or away from each other.
This effect occurs in Newtonian physics as well, although it’s not ana-
lyzed by considering spacetime to be curved. One illustration of this is to
consider a box in freefall above the earth. We’ll put an observer at the centre
of the box, and place balls above, below and to either side of the observer.
Because the gravitational force (we can think of gravity as a force if we’re
using Newtonian physics) due to the Earth is radial and falls off accord-
ing to the inverse square formula, the ball at the top of the box experiences
a force (per unit mass) less than that of the observer, who in turn feels a
smaller force than the ball at the bottom of the box. Thus the ball at the
top accelerates more slowly than the observer, who in turn accelerates more
slowly than the ball at the bottom. To the observer, these two balls appear
to be accelerating away from him in opposite directions.
Due to the radial direction of the gravitational force, the two balls on ei-
ther side of the observer will feel a small component of the force pulling
them towards the centre of the box (although most of the force is directed
downwards). As a result, the observer will see these two balls accelerating
towards him horizontally. The five objects inside the box start out on par-
allel geodesics, but each of them follows its own geodesic, which deviates
from the initial parallel path.
Qualitatively, we can see that it is this effect which causes the tides in
the Earth’s oceans. The Earth is in freefall about the Earth-Moon centre of
mass, so points on the side of the Earth opposite the Moon have a smaller
acceleration than the Earth’s centre, which in turn has a smaller acceleration
than points on the side closest to the Moon. Points on the surfaces of the
Earth lying along the normal to the line connecting the Earth and Moon
experience accelerations towards the centre of the Earth. This gives rise to
high tides on the near and far points on the Earth, and low tides in between.
1
 NEWTONIAN TIDAL EFFECT 2

To make the argument quantitative, we can introduce the gravitational

potential

GM
Φ=− (1)
r
The acceleration, or force per unit mass, is the negative gradient of Φ
which we can write using index notation and the flat space metric η ij (which
is just η ij = δ ij here):

d2 xi ∂Φ
= −η ij (2)
dt 2 ∂xj ~
x
All quantities are evaluated at the object’s position ~x (t). Note that ev-
erywhere in this post, the summation over indices is over only the spatial
coordinates.
Now suppose we have a second object which starts off an infinitesimal
separation ~n (t) away from the first object, so its position is xi (t) + ni (t).
The first object could be our observer in the box, and the second object
could be one of the balls. To see how geodesic deviation (or the tidal effect)
works, we’d like to find the relative acceleration, which is d2 ni /dt2 .
The acceleration of the second object is

d 2 xi + n i


∂Φ
= −η ij (3)
dt 2 ∂xj ~
x+~n
where this time the gradient is evaluated at ~x + ~n. If ~n is small, we can
expand this gradient in a Taylor series about ~x:

∂Φ ∂Φ ∂ 2Φ
i
= +n +... (4)
∂xj ~
x+~n ∂xj ~
x ∂xi ∂xj ~
x
Putting this into 3 we get, ignoring higher order terms:

d2 xi + ni


∂ 2Φ
 
ij ∂Φ k
= −η +n (5)
dt 2 ∂xj ~
x ∂xk ∂xj ~
x
d2 xi d2 ni ∂Φ ∂ 2Φ
+ 2 = −η ij −η n ij k
(6)
dt 2 dt ∂xj ~
x ∂xk ∂xj ~
x
d2 ni 2
ij k ∂ Φ
= −η n (7)
dt2 ∂xk ∂xj ~
x
where in the last line, we used 2. This is the Newtonian tidal deviation
equation, expressed using index notation.
 NEWTONIAN TIDAL EFFECT 3

We can use this equation to work out the relative acceleration in the three
rectangular directions for the falling box above, taking the z direction to be
radially outward. Using index notation, we have
√
r= ηmn xm xn (8)
The gradient terms can be written as

∂Φ dΦ ∂r
j
= (9)
∂x dr ∂xj
GM ηjn xn + ηmj xm
= 2 √ (10)
r 2 ηmn xm xn
GM
= 3 ηjn xn (11)
r
where we got the last line using the symmetry of the metric ηij = ηji .
The second derivatives are then:

3GM ∂r GM
∂k ∂j Φ = − 4 k
ηjn xn + 3 ηjk (12)
r ∂x r
3GM ηkm xm GM
=− 4 ηjn xn + 3 ηjk (13)
r r r
3GM GM
= − 5 ηkm ηjn xn xm + 3 ηjk (14)
r r
Putting this into 7, and using η ij ηjn = δni :

d2 ni
 
ij k 3GM n m GM
= −η n − 5 ηkm ηjn x x + 3 ηjk (15)
dt2 r r
3GM GM
= 5
ηkm nk xm xi − 3 ni (16)
r r
If we take the reference object to be at the position x = y = 0, z = r, then
the first term is non-zero only when all the coordinates are z coordinates so

d2 nx GM x
= − n (17)
dt2 r3
d2 ny GM
2
= − 3 ny (18)
dt r
2
d n z GM
2
= 2 3 nz (19)
dt r
 NEWTONIAN TIDAL EFFECT 4

Thus the acceleration in the transverse directions (x and y) is opposite to

the relative displacement so that the objects accelerate towards each other,
and in the radial (z) direction the acceleration is away from each other.
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