Effective Field Theory for Extreme Mass Ratio Binaries

We derive an effective field theory describing a pair of gravitationally interacting point particles in an expansion in their mass ratio, also known as the self-force (SF) expansion. The 0SF dynamics are trivially obtained to all orders in Newton's constant by the geodesic motion of the light b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2024-03, Vol.132 (9), p.091402-091402, Article 091402
Main Authors: Cheung, Clifford, Parra-Martinez, Julio, Rothstein, Ira Z, Shah, Nabha, Wilson-Gerow, Jordan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Classical solutions in field theory
Effective field theory
Gravitational waves
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Summary:We derive an effective field theory describing a pair of gravitationally interacting point particles in an expansion in their mass ratio, also known as the self-force (SF) expansion. The 0SF dynamics are trivially obtained to all orders in Newton's constant by the geodesic motion of the light body in a Schwarzschild background encoding the gravitational field of the heavy body. The corrections at 1SF and higher are generated by perturbations about this configuration-that is, the geodesic deviation of the light body and the fluctuation graviton-but crucially supplemented by an operator describing the recoil of the heavy body as it interacts with the smaller companion. Using this formalism we compute new results at third post-Minkowskian order for the conservative dynamics of a system of gravitationally interacting massive particles coupled to a set of additional scalar and vector fields.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.091402