7–17 Apr 2026
Albano Building 3
Europe/Stockholm timezone

Gravitational Sommerfeld Effects

16 Apr 2026, 13:30
40m
Albano Building 3

Albano Building 3

Hannes Alfvéns väg 12, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden

Speaker

Chih-Hao Chang

Description

In the effective field theory (EFT) description of compact binary inspirals, the radiated gravitational waveform receives universal corrections from gravitational background, the so-called "tail" effects, that resum into the "Sommerfeld factor". We derive a closed-form expression for the Sommerfeld factor and present a systematic framework to compute it at high orders by combining EFT with black hole perturbation theory, including induced tidal responses. We prove that the phase of the Sommerfeld factor is exactly half of the elastic Compton scattering phase shift when tidal interactions are conservative. We further establish a new renormalization group equation for the radiative multipole moments. These high-order perturbative results provide new avenues for improving waveform resummation.

Presentation materials