BGU Physics Department

Colloquium, Nov. 18, 2010


Solving the two body problem in Einstein's gravity


Barak Kol, Hebrew University

Einstein's gravity and the standard model of particle physics describe our knowledge of the fundamental interactions. Following a period of fragmentation and separate development of the two theories, several important connections came to light in recent years. In this talk it will be explained how effective field theory techniques which originate in particle physics bring insight and results into the two-body problem in Einstein's gravity. This theoretical problem is essential for the world-wide effort to detect gravitational waves and use them for a new astronomy.
We shall discuss how deep concepts of perturbative quantum field theory appear in classical field theory, including Feynman rules, regularizing divergences and renormalization. We shall also explain a novel decomposition of Einstein's metric field in the non-relativistic limit.