Effective action for compact objects and universal relations

by Jan Steinhoff (MPI for Gravitational Physics, Potsdam)

Wednesday 22 Apr 2015, 16:00 → 17:30 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

The large-scale gravitational interaction of spinning compact objects, like neutron stars and black holes, can be described using a point-particle effective action. This action can be used as a starting point for calculation of the dynamics and gravitational waves for binary systems in the post-Newtonian approximation. The effective action contains several parameters describing spin-induced and tidal-induced deformations, and the moment of inertia. It was found recently that these quantities are related by approximately equation-of-state-independent (universal) relations in the case of neutron stars. Possible implications for binary systems and their gravitational waves are discussed.