Higher-order environmental corrections to binary inspiral dynamics

Calculate higher-order corrections in Newton’s constant to the effects of accretion, dynamical friction, and planetary migration on binary inspiral dynamics, including environmental effects beyond leading order.

Background

The paper motivates a systematic effective-field-theory treatment of compact objects moving through relativistic fluids because environmental processes such as accretion and dynamical friction can introduce dissipative forces into binary inspirals. Although leading-order effects are known in several settings, the authors identify the extension of these calculations to higher orders in Newton’s constant as unresolved. The presented fluid EFT, with explicit phonon, graviton, and compact-object fields, is developed as an initial framework for addressing this problem through Feynman diagrams, scattering amplitudes, generalized unitarity, and post-Minkowskian methods.

This open problem is broader than the leading-order dynamical-friction calculation carried out in the paper: the paper reproduces the known leading-order relativistic dynamical-friction force from single-phonon emission, but does not calculate the higher-order environmental corrections to binary dynamics.