2005/11/11 by Walter D. Goldberger, Ira Z. Rothstein · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.73.104030
published as Phys.Rev.D73:104030,2006 · 19 pages 2 figures
arxiv created 2005/11/11 · openalex publication_date 2006/05/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We derive a long wavelength effective point-particle description of four-dimensional Schwarzschild black holes. In this effective theory, absorptive effects are incorporated by introducing degrees of freedom localized on the worldline that mimic the interaction between the horizon and bulk fields. The correlation functions of composite operators in this worldline theory can be obtained by standard matching calculations. For example, we obtain the low frequency two-point function of multipole worldline operators by relating them to the long wavelength graviton black hole absorptive cross section. The effective theory is then used to predict the leading effects of absorption in several astrophysically motivated examples, including the dynamics of nonrelativistic black hole binary inspirals and the motion of a small black hole in an arbitrary background geometry. Our results can be written compactly in terms of absorption cross sections, and can be easily applied to the dissipative dynamics of any compact object, e.g. neutron stars. The relation of our methodology to that developed in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence is discussed.