Geodesics of Spherical Dilaton Spacetimes

The properties of spherical dilaton black hole spacetimes are investigated through a study of their geodesics. The closed and non-closed orbits of test particles are analysed using the effective potential and phase-plane method. The stability and types of orbits are determined in terms of the energy and angular momentum of the test particles. The conditions of the existence of circular orbits for a spherical dilaton spacetime with an arbitrary dilaton coupling constant α are obtained. The properties of the orbits and in particular the position of the innermost stable circular orbit are compared to those of the Reissner--Nordström spacetime. The circumferential radius of innermost stable circular orbit and the corresponding angular momentum of the test particles increase for α≠0.