Riccardo Sturani minicourse on gravitational waves

Lecturer: Riccardo Sturani (ICTP-SAIFR)

Title: Effective field theory methods applied to the 2-body problem in General Relativity

Dates: August 1, 8, 15 and 22

Times and Locations in IFT-UNESP:
August 1, auditorium, 11h15-12h45, 14h15-15h45
August 8, sala 2, 12-13h30, 14h15-15h45
August 15, sala 2, 12-14
August 22, sala 2, 12-13h30, 14h15-15h45

Description: his course is aimed at graduate students in all fields of theoretical physics. Pre-requisites are basic notions in ordinary quantum mechanics and general relativity. The course is organized in two lessons per week, for 4 weeks. Each lesson is scheduled to be 1h30′ long. Exercises will be suggested at each lesson. Notes for the course will be ready during the course or shortly after it.

Lecture Program:

Lessons 1-2
Introduction to general relativity. Spin of the gravitational waves, gauge choices. Source overview and order of magnitudes. Interactions of gravitational waves with experimental detectors. Green functions and field boundary conditions.

Lessons 3-4
Effective field theory applied to toy models. The two body problem in general relativity. The post-Newtonian approximation. Effective field theory derivation of the Einstein-Infeld-Hoffman potential.

Lessons 5-6
The effective field theory point of view of non-relativistic General Relativity. The Feynman integral as a basic tool to compute observables in General Relativity. The multipole expansion.

Lessons 7-8
Emission of gravitational waves. The quadrupole formula and its first order corrections. Tail and memory effects. Regularization of divergences and renormalization of physical quantities in field theory and its application to General Relativity.

Notes of the course: