High Energy Physics Seminar

The burgeoning of gravitational-wave astronomy continues to draw the attention of diverse groups of theorists to the problem of solving for the motion of two-spinning-black-hole systems according to general relativity.  Recent developments, involving novel applications of the technologies of relativistic quantum scattering amplitudes, have significantly advanced the frontiers of perturbative approaches to the problem -- including the post-Newtonian (PN), post-Minkowskian (PM), and post-probe ("self-force") approximations -- while revealing unexpectedly powerful links between the complementary perturbation schemes.  We will review in particular the potential (in some cases realized, and in others untapped) to deduce results for arbitrary-mass-ratio binaries, at higher orders in the PN and PM expansions, from results in the probe limit (and its perturbations), for multipolar probes moving in exact Schwarzschild and Kerr backgrounds.  We will also discuss recent generalizations of conservation laws for multipolar probes in Kerr backgrounds, arising from the spacetime's "hidden symmetry," and their potential implications for the generic binary black hole problem.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

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