Résumé / Abstract Journal-club_GReCO

Séminaire / Seminar GReCO

« Relativistic theory of tidal Love numbers »

E. Poisson

In Newtonian gravitational theory, a tidal Love number relates the mass multipole moment created on a spherical body to the applied tidal field. The Love number is dimensionless, and it encodes information about the body''s internal structure. In this talk I present a relativistic theory of Love numbers, which applies to compact bodies with strong internal gravity. The theory extends and completes the previous work of Flanagan and Hinderer (2007) and Hinderer (2008), which revealed that the tidal Love number of a neutron stars can be measured in gravitational-wave signals. I consider a spherical body deformed by an external tidal field, and provide precise and meaningful definitions for electric-type and magnetic-type Love numbers and these are computed for polytropic equations of state. The theory applies to black holes as well, and we find that the relativistic Love numbers of a nonrotating black hole are all zero.
jeudi 9 juillet 2009 - 11:00
Salle des séminaires Évry Schatzman
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Pages web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage