Publications (95)
EZ gauge is singular at the event horizon
Eamonn Corrigan, Eric Poisson
We prove that the EZ gauge of black-hole perturbation theory, introduced by the late Steve Detweiler in his exploration of the physical consequences of the gravitational self-force…
Self-force on a charge outside a five-dimensional black hole
Matthew J. S. Beach, Eric Poisson, Bernhard G. Nickel
We compute the electromagnetic self-force acting on a charged particle held in place at a fixed position r outside a five-dimensional black hole described by the Schwarzschild-Tang…
Gravitational action with null boundaries
Luis Lehner, Robert C. Myers, Eric Poisson +1
We present a complete discussion of the boundary term in the action functional of general relativity when the boundary includes null segments in addition to the more usual timelike…
Can LIGO see compact binaries?
Serge Droz, Eric Poisson
The probability that interferometric detectors such as LIGO and VIRGO will successfully detect inspiraling compact binaries depends in part on our knowledge of the expected gravita…
Trace of the energy-momentum tensor and macroscopic properties of neutron stars
Dylan M. Podkowka, Raissa F. P. Mendes, Eric Poisson
A generic feature of scalar extensions of general relativity is the coupling of the scalar degrees of freedom to the trace of the energy-momentum tensor of matter fields. Inter…
Dynamical response to a stationary tidal field
Philippe Landry, Eric Poisson
We demonstrate that a slowly rotating compact body subjected to a stationary tidal field undergoes a dynamical response, in which the fluid variables and the interior metric vary o…
Gravitational waves from binary systems in circular orbits: Convergence of a dressed multipole truncation
Stephen W. Leonard, Eric Poisson
The gravitational radiation originating from a compact binary system in circular orbit is usually expressed as an infinite sum over radiative multipole moments. In a slow-motion ap…
Measuring black-hole parameters and testing general relativity using gravitational-wave data from space-based interferometers
Eric Poisson
Among the expected sources of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is the capture of solar-mass compact stars by massive black holes residing in ga…
Retarded coordinates based at a world line, and the motion of a small black hole in an external universe
Eric Poisson
In the first part of this article I present a system of retarded coordinates based at an arbitrary world line of an arbitrary curved spacetime. The retarded-time coordinate labels…
Gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries: Validity of the stationary-phase approximation to the Fourier transform
Serge Droz, Daniel J. Knapp, Eric Poisson +1
We prove that the oft-used stationary-phase method gives a very accurate expression for the Fourier transform of the gravitational-wave signal produced by an inspiraling compact bi…
Osculating orbits in Schwarzschild spacetime, with an application to extreme mass-ratio inspirals
Adam Pound, Eric Poisson
We present a method to integrate the equations of motion that govern bound, accelerated orbits in Schwarzschild spacetime. At each instant the true worldline is assumed to lie tang…
Electromagnetic self-force on a static charge in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes
Joseph Kuchar, Eric Poisson, Ian Vega
We compute the self-force acting on an electric charge at rest in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes, allowing the cosmological constant to be either positive or negative. In the c…
Self-force as probe of internal structure
Soichiro Isoyama, Eric Poisson
The self-force acting on a (scalar or electric) charge held in place outside a massive body contains information about the body's composition, and can therefore be used as a probe…
Gravitational radiation from infall into a black hole: Regularization of the Teukolsky equation
Eric Poisson
The Teukolsky equation has long been known to lead to divergent integrals when it is used to calculate the gravitational radiation emitted when a test mass falls into a black hole…
Gravitomagnetic tidal currents in rotating neutron stars
Eric Poisson, Jean Doucot
It was recently revealed that a rotating compact body responds dynamically when it is subjected to a gravitomagnetic tidal field, even when this field is idealized as time-independ…
Gravitomagnetic response of an irrotational body to an applied tidal field
Philippe Landry, Eric Poisson
The deformation of a nonrotating body resulting from the application of a tidal field is measured by two sets of Love numbers associated with the gravitoelectric and gravitomagneti…
Tidal heating and torquing of a Kerr black hole to next-to-leading order in the tidal coupling
Katerina Chatziioannou, Eric Poisson, Nicolas Yunes
We calculate the linear vacuum perturbations of a Kerr black hole surrounded by a slowly-varying external spacetime to third order in the ratio of the black-hole mass to the radius…
Black-hole interiors and strong cosmic censorship
Eric Poisson
Strong cosmic censorship holds that given suitable initial data on a spacelike hypersurface, the laws of general relativity should determine, completely and uniquely, the future ev…
Impact of nonlinearities on relativistic dynamical tides in compact binary inspirals
Tristan Pitre, Eric Poisson
The tidal deformation of a neutron star in a binary inspiral driven by the emission of gravitational waves affects the orbital dynamics and produces a measurable modulation of the…
Absorption of mass and angular momentum by a black hole: Time-domain formalisms for gravitational perturbations, and the small-hole/slow-motion approximation
Eric Poisson
The first objective of this work is to obtain practical prescriptions to calculate the absorption of mass and angular momentum by a black hole when external processes produce gravi…
The Last Three Minutes: Issues in Gravitational Wave Measurements of Coalescing Compact Binaries
Curt Cutler, Theocharis A. Apostolatos, Lars Bildsten +8
Gravitational-wave interferometers are expected to monitor the last three minutes of inspiral and final coalescence of neutron star and black hole binaries at distances approaching…
Mass loss by a scalar charge in an expanding universe
Lior M. Burko, Abraham I. Harte, Eric Poisson
We study the phenomenon of mass loss by a scalar charge -- a point particle that acts a source for a noninteracting scalar field -- in an expanding universe. The charge is placed o…
Gravitomagnetic tidal resonance in neutron-star binary inspirals
Eric Poisson
A compact binary system implicating at least one rotating neutron star undergoes gravitomagnetic tidal resonances as it inspirals toward its final merger. These have a dynamical im…
Coulombic contribution to the flux of angular momentum in general relativity
Béatrice Bonga, Eric Poisson
The flux of angular momentum in electromagnetism cannot be expressed entirely in terms of the field's radiative degrees of freedom. Its expression also involves Coulombic pieces of…
The gravitational self-force
Eric Poisson
The self-force describes the effect of a particle's own gravitational field on its motion. While the motion is geodesic in the test-mass limit, it is accelerated to first order in…
Improved next-to-leading order tidal heating and torquing of a Kerr black hole
Katerina Chatziioannou, Eric Poisson, Nicolas Yunes
We calculate the energy and angular momentum fluxes across the event horizon of a tidally deformed, rapidly rotating black hole to next-to-leading order in the curvature of the ext…
Tidally induced multipole moments of a nonrotating black hole vanish to all post-Newtonian orders
Eric Poisson
The tidal Love numbers of a black hole vanish, and this is often taken to imply that the hole's tidally induced multipole moments vanish also. An obstacle to establishing a link be…
Self-force as a cosmic censor
Peter Zimmerman, Ian Vega, Eric Poisson +1
We examine Hubeny's scenario according to which a near-extremal Reissner-Nordström black hole can absorb a particle and be driven toward an over-extremal state in which the charge…
An introduction to the Lorentz-Dirac equation
Eric Poisson
These notes provide two derivations of the Lorentz-Dirac equation. The first is patterned after Landau and Lifshitz and is based on the observation that the half-retarded minus hal…
A reformulation of the Barrabes-Israel null-shell formalism
Eric Poisson
We consider a situation in which two metrics are joined at a null hypersurface. It often occurs that the union of the two metrics gives rise to a Ricci tensor that contains a term…
Mass change and motion of a scalar charge in cosmological spacetimes
Roland Haas, Eric Poisson
Continuing previous work reported in an earlier paper [L.M. Burko, A.I. Harte, and E. Poisson, Phys. Rev. D 65, 124006 (2002)] we calculate the self-force acting on a point scalar…
Self-gravitating thin shells are dynamically unstable on all angular scales
Tristan Pitre, Berend Schneider, Eric Poisson
We establish the dynamical instability of a static, spherically symmetric, and infinitesimally thin shell in general relativity. The shell is made up of a perfect fluid with a baro…
Constructing the self-force
Eric Poisson
I present an overview of the methods involved in the computation of the scalar, electromagnetic, and gravitational self-forces acting on a point particle moving in a curved spaceti…
General relativistic dynamical tides in binary inspirals, without modes
Tristan Pitre, Eric Poisson
A neutron star in an inspiraling binary system is tidally deformed by its companion, and the effect leaves a measurable imprint on the emitted gravitational waves. While the tidal…
Light-cone coordinates based at a geodesic world line
Brent Preston, Eric Poisson
Continuing work initiated in an earlier publication [Phys. Rev. D 69, 084007 (2004)], we construct a system of light-cone coordinates based at a geodesic world line of an arbitrary…
Tidal driving of inertial modes of Maclaurin spheroids
Eric Poisson, Cyann Buisson
We examine the inertial modes of vibration of a Maclaurin spheroid and determine how they are driven by an external tidal field, either Newtonian (gravitoelectric) or post-Newtonia…
Swimming in spacetime: the view from a Fermi observer
Raissa F. P. Mendes, Eric Poisson
An extended test body moving in a curved spacetime does not typically follow a geodesic, because of forces that arise from couplings between its multipole moments and the ambient c…
Low multipole contributions to the gravitational self-force
Steve Detweiler, Eric Poisson
We calculate the unregularized monopole and dipole contributions to the self-force acting on a particle of small mass in a circular orbit around a Schwarzschild black hole. From a…
Gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries: The quadrupole-moment term
Eric Poisson
A rotating star's oblateness creates a deformation in the gravitational field outside the star, which is measured by the quadrupole-moment tensor. We consider the effect of the qua…
Head-on collision of compact objects in general relativity: Comparison of post-Newtonian and perturbation approaches
Liliana E. Simone, Eric Poisson, Clifford M. Will
The gravitational-wave energy flux produced during the head-on infall and collision of two compact objects is calculated using two approaches: (i) a post-Newtonian method, carried…
Gravitomagnetic Love tensor of a slowly rotating body: post-Newtonian theory
Eric Poisson
The gravitomagnetic tidal Love number of a slowly rotating body was calculated previously under the assumption that the velocity perturbation created by the tidal field consists of…
Can the post-Newtonian gravitational waveform of an inspiraling binary be improved by solving the energy balance equation numerically?
Wolfgang Tichy, Eanna E. Flanagan, Eric Poisson
The detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries using matched filtering depends crucially on the availability of accurate template waveforms. We determine wh…
Quadrupole moments of rotating neutron stars
William G. Laarakkers, Eric Poisson
Numerical models of rotating neutron stars are constructed for four equations of state using the computer code RNS written by Stergioulas. For five selected values of the star's gr…
Scalar, electromagnetic, and gravitational self-forces in weakly curved spacetimes
Michael J. Pfenning, Eric Poisson
We calculate the self-force experienced by a point scalar charge, a point electric charge, and a point mass moving in a weakly curved spacetime characterized by a time-independent…
Self-gravitating anisotropic fluids. I: Context and overview
Tom Cadogan, Eric Poisson
This paper is the first in a sequence of three devoted to the formulation of a theory of self-gravitating anisotropic fluids in both Newtonian and relativistic gravity. In this fir…
Equilibrium and stability of thin spherical shells in Newtonian and relativistic gravity
Philip LeMaitre, Eric Poisson
We consider thin spherical shells of matter in both Newtonian gravity and general relativity, and examine their equilibrium configurations and dynamical stability. Thin-shell model…
Mode-sum regularization of the scalar self-force: Formulation in terms of a tetrad decomposition of the singular field
Roland Haas, Eric Poisson
We examine the motion in Schwarzschild spacetime of a point particle endowed with a scalar charge. The particle produces a retarded scalar field which interacts with the particle a…
Compact body in a tidal environment: New types of relativistic Love numbers, and a post-Newtonian operational definition for tidally induced multipole moments
Eric Poisson
We examine the tidal deformation of a nonrotating compact body (material body or black hole) in general relativity. The body's exterior metric is calculated in a simultaneous expan…
Gravitational radiation from a particle in circular orbit around a black hole. VI. Accuracy of the post-Newtonian expansion
Eric Poisson
A particle of mass moves on a circular orbit around a nonrotating black hole of mass . Under the assumption the gravitational waves emitted by such a binary syste…
Gravitational waves from coalescing compact binaries
Eric Poisson
This article is intended to provide a pedagogical account of issues related to, and recent work on, gravitational waves from coalescing compact binaries (composed of neutron stars…
Metric of a tidally distorted, nonrotating black hole
Eric Poisson
The metric of a tidally distorted, nonrotating black hole is presented in a light-cone coordinate system that penetrates the event horizon and possesses a clear geometrical meaning…
Multi-scale analysis of the electromagnetic self-force in a weak gravitational field
Adam Pound, Eric Poisson
We examine the motion of a charged particle in a weak gravitational field. In addition to the Newtonian gravity exerted by a large central body, the particle is subjected to an ele…
Gravitational self-force in nonvacuum spacetimes
Peter Zimmerman, Eric Poisson
The gravitational self-force has thus far been formulated in background spacetimes for which the metric is a solution to the Einstein field equations in vacuum. While this formulat…
Radiative falloff of a scalar field in a weakly curved spacetime without symmetries
Eric Poisson
We consider a massless scalar field propagating in a weakly curved spacetime whose metric is a solution to the linearized Einstein field equations. The spacetime is assumed to be s…
Gravitational waves from eccentric compact binaries: Reduction in signal-to-noise ratio due to nonoptimal signal processing
Karl Martel, Eric Poisson
Inspiraling compact binaries have been identified as one of the most promising sources of gravitational waves for interferometric detectors. Most of these binaries are expected to…
Extended-body approach to the electromagnetic self-force in curved spacetime
Javier Molina Sanchez, Eric Poisson
We offer a novel derivation of the electromagnetic self-force acting on a charged particle moving in an arbitrary curved spacetime. Our derivation is based on a generalization from…
Mukkamala-Pereñiguez master function for even-parity perturbations of the Schwarzschild spacetime
Eric Poisson
Mukkamala and Pereñiguez recently discovered a new master function for even-parity metric perturbations of the Schwarzschild spacetime. Remarkably, this function satisfies the Reg…
Self-gravitating anisotropic fluid. III: Relativistic theory
Tom Cadogan, Eric Poisson
This is the third and final entry in a sequence of papers devoted to the formulation of a theory of self-gravitating anisotropic fluids in Newtonian gravity and general relativity.…
Self-gravitating anisotropic fluid. II: Newtonian theory
Tom Cadogan, Eric Poisson
This paper is the second in a sequence of three devoted to the formulation of a theory of self-gravitating anisotropic fluids in both Newtonian gravity and general relativity. In t…
Gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries: Accuracy of the post-Newtonian waveforms
Eric Poisson
The accuracy of the post-Newtonian waveforms, both in standard and Pade form, is determined by computing their matched-filtering overlap integral with a reference waveform obtained…
Gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries: Parameter estimation using second-post-Newtonian waveforms
Eric Poisson, Clifford M. Will
The parameters of inspiralling compact binaries can be estimated using matched filtering of gravitational-waveform templates against the output of laser-interferometric gravitation…
A One-Parameter Family of Time-Symmetric Initial Data for the Radial Infall of a Particle into a Schwarzschild Black Hole
Karl Martel, Eric Poisson
A one-parameter family of time-symmetric initial data for the radial infall of a particle into a Schwarzschild black hole is constructed within the framework of black-hole perturba…
Tidal interaction of a small black hole in the field of a large Kerr black hole
Simon Comeau, Eric Poisson
The rates at which the mass and angular momentum of a small black hole change as a result of a tidal interaction with a much larger black hole are calculated to leading order in th…
Radiative falloff in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime
Patrick Brady, Chris Chambers, William Laarakkers +1
We consider the time evolution of a scalar field propagating in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime. At early times, the field behaves as if it were in pure Schwarzschild spacetime;…
Intrinsic and extrinsic geometries of a tidally deformed black hole
Ian Vega, Eric Poisson, Ryan Massey
A description of the event horizon of a perturbed Schwarzschild black hole is provided in terms of the intrinsic and extrinsic geometries of the null hypersurface. This description…
Limitations of the adiabatic approximation to the gravitational self-force
Adam Pound, Eric Poisson, Bernhard G. Nickel
A small body moving in the field of a much larger black hole and subjected to its own gravity moves on an accelerated world line in the background spacetime of the large black hole…
Particle hanging on a string near a Schwarzschild black hole
Michael LaHaye, Eric Poisson
The literature features many instances of spacetimes containing two black holes held apart by a thin distribution of matter on the axis joining the holes. For all such spacetimes,…
Nonlinear ringdown at the black hole horizon
Neev Khera, Ariadna Ribes Metidieri, Béatrice Bonga +6
The gravitational waves emitted by a perturbed black hole ringing down are well described by damped sinusoids, whose frequencies are those of quasinormal modes. Typically, first-or…
The motion of point particles in curved spacetime
Eric Poisson
This review is concerned with the motion of a point scalar charge, a point electric charge, and a point mass in a specified background spacetime. In each of the three cases the par…
Regularization of static self-forces
Marc Casals, Eric Poisson, Ian Vega
Various regularization methods have been used to compute the self-force acting on a static particle in a static, curved spacetime. Many of these are based on Hadamard's two-point f…
Relativistic theory of tidal Love numbers
Taylor Binnington, Eric Poisson
In Newtonian gravitational theory, a tidal Love number relates the mass multipole moment created by tidal forces on a spherical body to the applied tidal field. The Love number is…
Tidal deformation of a slowly rotating material body. External metric
Philippe Landry, Eric Poisson
We construct the external metric of a slowly rotating, tidally deformed material body in general relativity. The tidal forces acting on the body are assumed to be weak and to vary…
Nonrotating black hole in a post-Newtonian tidal environment
Stephanne Taylor, Eric Poisson
We examine the motion and tidal dynamics of a nonrotating black hole placed within a post-Newtonian external spacetime. The tidal perturbation created by the external environment i…
The Schwarzschild metric: It's the coordinates, stupid!
Pierre Fromholz, Eric Poisson, Clifford M. Will
Every general relativity textbook emphasizes that coordinates have no physical meaning. Nevertheless, a coordinate choice must be made in order to carry out real calculations, and…
Radiative multipole moments of integer-spin fields in curved spacetime
Stephen W. Leonard, Eric Poisson
Radiative multipole moments of scalar, electromagnetic, and linearized gravitational fields in Schwarzschild spacetime are computed to third order in v in a weak-field, slow-motion…
Nonrotating black hole in a post-Newtonian tidal environment II
Eric Poisson, Eamonn Corrigan
In the first part of the paper we construct the metric of a tidally deformed, nonrotating black hole. The metric is presented as an expansion in powers of r/b << 1, in which r is t…
Regular coordinate systems for Schwarzschild and other spherical spacetimes
Karl Martel, Eric Poisson
The continuation of the Schwarzschild metric across the event horizon is almost always (in textbooks) carried out using the Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates, in terms of which the area…
The motion of point particles in curved spacetime
Eric Poisson, Adam Pound, Ian Vega
This review is concerned with the motion of a point scalar charge, a point electric charge, and a point mass in a specified background spacetime. In each of the three cases the par…
Gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries: Second post-Newtonian waveforms as search templates
Serge Droz, Eric Poisson
We ascertain the effectiveness of the second post-Newtonian approximation to the gravitational waves emitted during the adiabatic inspiral of a compact binary system as templates f…
Radiative falloff in black-hole spacetimes
William G. Laarakkers, Eric Poisson
This two-part contribution to the Proceedings of the Eighth Canadian Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics is devoted to the evolution of a massless scalar…
Gravitational radiation from a particle in circular orbit around a black hole. V. Black-hole absorption and tail corrections
Eric Poisson, Misao Sasaki
A particle of mass moves on a circular orbit of a nonrotating black hole of mass . Under the restrictions and , where is the orbital velocity, we…
Self-force from conical singularity, without renormalization
Michael LaHaye, Eric Poisson
We develop an approach to calculate the self-force on a charged particle held in place in a curved spacetime, in which the particle is attached to a massless string and the force i…
Radiative falloff in Einstein-Straus spacetime
William G. Laarakkers, Eric Poisson
The Einstein-Straus spacetime describes a nonrotating black hole immersed in a matter-dominated cosmology. It is constructed by scooping out a spherical ball of the dust and replac…
Gravitational perturbations of the Schwarzschild spacetime: A practical covariant and gauge-invariant formalism
Karl Martel, Eric Poisson
We present a formalism to study the metric perturbations of the Schwarzschild spacetime. The formalism is gauge invariant, and it is also covariant under two-dimensional coordinate…
Tidally induced multipole moments of a charged material body
Victoria Leaker, Tristan Pitre, Eric Poisson
We define and calculate the mass multipole moments of a material body of mass and electric charge tidally deformed by a particle of mass and charge plac…
Classical stability and quantum instability of black-hole Cauchy horizons
Dragoljub Markovic, Eric Poisson
For a certain region of the parameter space , the Cauchy horizon of a (charged) black hole residing in de Sitter space is classically stable to gravitational perturbati…
Relativistic theory of surficial Love numbers
Philippe Landry, Eric Poisson
A relativistic theory of surficial Love numbers, which characterize the surface deformation of a body subjected to tidal forces, was initiated by Damour and Nagar. We revisit this…
Tidal interaction of black holes and Newtonian viscous bodies
Eric Poisson
The tidal interaction of a (rotating or nonrotating) black hole with nearby bodies produces changes in its mass, angular momentum, and surface area. Similarly, tidal forces acting…
Self-torque and angular momentum balance for a spinning charged sphere
Beatrice Bonga, Eric Poisson, Huan Yang
Angular momentum balance is examined in the context of the electrodynamics of a spinning charged sphere, which is allowed to possess any variable angular velocity. We calculate the…
Self-force as a probe of global structure
Karl Davidson, Eric Poisson
We calculate the self-force on an electric charge and electric dipole held at rest in a closed universe that results from joining two copies of Minkowski spacetime at a common boun…
Geometry and dynamics of a tidally deformed black hole
Eric Poisson, Igor Vlasov
The metric of a nonrotating black hole deformed by a tidal interaction is calculated and expressed as an expansion in the strength of the tidal coupling. The expansion parameter is…
Self-force and fluid resonances
Soichiro Isoyama, Raissa F. P. Mendes, Eric Poisson
The gravitational self-force acting on a particle orbiting a massive central body has thus far been computed for vacuum spacetimes involving a black hole. In this work we continue…
A light-cone gauge for black-hole perturbation theory
Brent Preston, Eric Poisson
The geometrical meaning of the Eddington-Finkelstein coordinates of Schwarzschild spacetime is well understood: (i) the advanced-time coordinate v is constant on incoming light con…
Thin-shell wormholes: Linearization stability
Eric Poisson, Matt Visser
The class of spherically-symmetric thin-shell wormholes provides a particularly elegant collection of exemplars for the study of traversable Lorentzian wormholes. In the present pa…
Tidal deformation of a slowly rotating black hole
Eric Poisson
In the first part of this article I determine the geometry of a slowly rotating black hole deformed by generic tidal forces created by a remote distribution of matter. The metric o…