2021/11/14 by Massimiliano Maria Riva, Riva, Massimiliano Maria · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Relativity and Gravitational Theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2111.07433
openalex publication_date 2021/11/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The topic of this thesis is the so-called Non-Relativistic General Relativity, an effective field theory approach proposed by Goldberger and Rothstein to study the conservative and dissipative dynamics of binary systems of compact objects in the post-Newtonian expansion. In the first part of the thesis we review this approach in the simplest possible case: a binary of non-spinning black holes at leading post-Newtonian order, both for the conservative and dissipative sector in general relativity. In the second part of the thesis we present the so-called Kaluza-Klein parametrization of the metric. Introduced by Kol and Smolkin, it allows to simplify the computations in the conservative sector at higher order in the post-Newtonian expansion. We then extend this parametrization to (conformally-coupled) scalar-tensor gravity. In particular, we derive in details the gravitational action in a generic metric frame, including for the first time a conformally coupled scalar field. Using this formalism, we study the conservative and dissipative dynamics of a binary system of bodies conformally coupled to the metric, at leading post-Newtonian order, and compare this with the standard general relativity results. This thesis is aimed at a reader that approaches the field for the first time. Hence, we attempted to be as pedagogical, explicit and self-contained as possible.