Talk detail

Participant	Pound, Adam
Institution	University of Southampton - University Road - Southampton - Hampshire - United Kingdom

Session	AN2/3	Accepted		Order	Time
Talk	Oral abstract	Title	Second-order gravitational self-force
Co-authors
Abstract	In order to extract physical parameters from the waveform of an extreme-mass-ratio binary, one requires a highly accurate description of the motion of the smaller of the two bodies. I show how to derive the equation of motion of a small, compact body moving in an arbitrary vacuum spacetime. My method is based on matched asymptotic expansions, in which I calculate a general solution to Einstein's equation in a small region surrounding the body. Taking the small body to be approximately spherical and non-rotating (e.g., a perturbed Schwarzschild black hole), I find the equation of motion through second order in the body's mass. In this case, the motion is found to be geodesic in a certain locally defined regular geometry satisfying Einstein's equation at second order.