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arXiv · 2308.15304

Gravitational Self Force from Scattering Amplitudes in Curved Space

Abstract

We employ scattering amplitudes in curved space to model the dynamics of a light probe particle with mass $m$ orbiting in the background spacetime induced by a heavy gravitational source with mass $M$. Observables are organized as an expansion in $m/M$ to all orders in $G$ -- the gravitational self-force expansion. An essential component of our analysis is the backreaction of the heavy source which we capture by including the associated light degrees of freedom. As illustration we consider a Schwarzschild background and verify geodesic motion as well as the first-order self-force correction to two-body scattering through ${\cal O}(G^3)$. Amplitudes in curved space offer several advantages, and further developments along these lines may advance the computation of gravitational-wave signals for extreme-mass-ratio inspirals.

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Dimitrios Kosmopoulos, Mikhail P. Solon. 2023-08-29. Gravitational Self Force from Scattering Amplitudes in Curved Space. https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.15304

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