Scott Hughes: The large mass ratio limit of the relativistic two-body problem
Channel: lawphysics
Date: 02/03/2022

Webinar 129

Speaker:
Scott Hughes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Host:
Alejandro Cárdenas-Avendaño, Konrad Lorenz & Princeton University

Abstract: Understanding the two-body of general relativity is central to modeling gravitational waves from compact binaries, and for using such systems as laboratories for exploring the astrophysics and foundational physics of strong gravity.  The large mass ratio limit of this problem, when one member of the body is much more massive than other, makes it possible to approach this problem perturbatively.  This yields a formulation of the two-body problem that can be solved with great precision.  Solutions describing binaries in the large mass ratio limit provide insight into the general two body problem, and in fact perfectly describe a subset of astrophysical binaries that are anticipated to be an important contributor to the data of low-frequency space-based gravitational-wave antennae.  In this talk, I will describe this problem in general, and go into details of recent progress working in this limit, focusing on aspects of the problem that I have been personally involved in.

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