24 January 2022

Space Science at Droptower SEMINAR TALK

Location: ZARM Bremen - Online seminar
When: 24.01.2022, 17:00 CET - Online

Speaker: Luc Blanchet (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France)

Title: Two-body dynamics and gravitational waves in general relativity

Abstract: The monumental discovery of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo detectors confirms the basic prediction from general relativity: two black holes or neutron stars initially detected in close inward spiralling orbits will merge to form a single massive black hole, producing a burst of gravitational waves. In this talk, after motivating remarks on the properties of gravitational waves and compact binary systems, we shall describe the analytic two-body problem in general relativity, and review the recent developments  in the post-Newtonian approximation which allows an accurate description of the inspiralling phase of compact binaries, which is routinely used in the data analysis of the detectors.