Description:

The observation of gravitational waves by the LIGO/Virgo collaborations has opened a new window onto our Universe, and upcoming experiments promise increasingly precise measurements. In parallel developments, building on the insight that gravity is mediated by a massless spin-2 particle, quantum scattering amplitude methods—originally developed for particle physics—provide a novel framework for studying gravity. These techniques have already improved the precision of theoretical predictions for gravitational wave signals, particularly in the weak-field, fully relativistic regime.

After outlining the growing need for high-precision analytical predictions in light of current and future gravitational wave observations, we will review the scattering-amplitude-based approach to gravitational wave observables, highlighting both its recent successes and the remaining challenges in achieving the accuracy required by the expected experimental data.

Radu Roiban, Professor, Penn State University

Host:  John J. Carrasco