1999/01/31 by Patricia Purdue · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.60.104054
published as Phys.Rev. D60 (1999) 104054 · 8 pages, 1 figure; revised introduction, corrected typos
arxiv created 1999/06/15 · openalex publication_date 1999/10/28 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
When a self-gravitating body (e.g., a neutron star or black hole) interacts with an external tidal field (e.g., that of a binary companion), the interaction can do work on the body, changing its mass-energy. The details of this ``tidal heating'' are analyzed using the Landau-Lifshitz pseudotensor and the local asymptotic rest frame of the body. It is shown that the work done on the body is gauge invariant, while the body-tidal-field interaction energy contained within the body's local asymptotic rest frame is gauge dependent. This is analogous to Newtonian theory, where the interaction energy is shown to depend on how one localizes gravitational energy, but the work done on the body is independent of that localization.