8 research outputs found
Introductory lectures on the Effective One Body formalism
The Effective One Body (EOB) formalism is an analytical approach which aims
at providing an accurate description of the motion and radiation of coalescing
binary black holes. We present a brief review of the basic elements of this
approach.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, lectures given at the Second ICRANet
Stueckelberg Workshop on Relativistic Field Theories (Pescara, Italy,
September 3-8, 2007); to be published in the International Journal of Modern
Physics
Gravitational radiation reaction in the equations of motion of compact binaries to 3.5 post-Newtonian order
We compute the radiation reaction force on the orbital motion of compact
binaries to the 3.5 post-Newtonian (3.5PN) approximation, i.e. one PN order
beyond the dominant effect. The method is based on a direct PN iteration of the
near-zone metric and equations of motion of an extended isolated system, using
appropriate ``asymptotically matched'' flat-space-time retarded potentials. The
formalism is subsequently applied to binary systems of point particles, with
the help of the Hadamard self-field regularisation. Our result is the 3.5PN
acceleration term in a general harmonic coordinate frame. Restricting the
expression to the centre-of-mass frame, we find perfect agreement with the
result derived in a class of coordinate systems by Iyer and Will using the
energy and angular momentum balance equations.Comment: 28 pages, references added, to appear in Classical and Quantum
Gravit