Heavy Black Hole Effective Theory

TL;DR

This paper develops an effective field theory for heavy particles coupled to gravity, enabling efficient calculation of classical and quantum gravitational scattering amplitudes relevant for black hole physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel effective field theory framework organized by momentum transfer over mass, facilitating calculations in gravitational scattering at high orders.

Findings

Derived classical and quantum scattering amplitudes for heavy particles.

Validated the effective theory approach at second post-Minkowskian order.

Enhanced computational efficiency for gravitational wave modeling.

Abstract

We formulate an effective field theory describing large mass scalars and fermions minimally coupled to gravity. The operators of this effective field theory are organized in powers of the transfer momentum divided by the mass of the matter field, an expansion which lends itself to the efficient extraction of classical contributions from loop amplitudes in both the post-Newtonian and post-Minkowskian regimes. We use this effective field theory to calculate the classical and leading quantum gravitational scattering amplitude of two heavy spin-1/2 particles at the second post-Minkowskian order.