English

Infrared features of gravitational scattering and radiation in the eikonal approach

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-03-27 v2

Abstract

Following a semi-classical eikonal approach --- justified at transplanckian energies order by order in the deflection angle Θs4Gsb2Rb\Theta_s\sim\frac{4G\sqrt{s}}{b} \equiv \frac{2 R}{b} --- we investigate the infrared features of gravitational scattering and radiation in four space-time dimensions, and we illustrate the factorization and cancellation of the infinite Coulomb phase for scattering and the eikonal resummation for radiation. As a consequence, both the eikonal phase 2δ(E,b)2\delta(E,b) and the gravitational-wave (GW) spectrum dEGWdω\frac{\mathrm{d}E^{GW}}{\mathrm{d}\omega} are free from infrared problems in a frequency region extending from zero to (and possibly beyond) ω=1/R\omega =1/R. The infrared-singular behavior of 44-D gravity leaves a memory in the deep infrared region (ωRωb<1\omega R \ll \omega b < 1) of the spectrum. At O(ωb)\mathcal{O}(\omega b) we confirm the presence of logarithmic enhancements of the form already pointed out by Sen and collaborators on the basis of non leading corrections to soft-graviton theorems. These, however, do not contribute to the unpolarized and/or azimuthally-averaged flux. At O(ω2b2)\mathcal{O}(\omega^2 b^2) we find instead a positive logarithmically-enhanced correction to the total flux implying an unexpected maximum of its spectrum at ωb0.5\omega b \sim 0.5. At higher orders we find subleading enhanced contributions as well, which can be resummed, and have the interpretation of a finite rescattering Coulomb phase of emitted gravitons.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.08137,
  title  = {Infrared features of gravitational scattering and radiation in the eikonal approach},
  author = {Marcello Ciafaloni and Dimitri Colferai and Gabriele Veneziano},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.08137},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

24 pages, 7 figures; in v2 added 1 figure and several comments