Cheung C, Parra-Martinez J, Rothstein IZ, Shah N, Wilson-Gerow J. Effective Field Theory for Extreme Mass Ratio Binaries.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2024;
132:091402. [PMID:
38489645 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.132.091402]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 01/23/2024] [Indexed: 03/17/2024]
Abstract
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.
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