English

Well-posed formulation of scalar-tensor effective field theory

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2020-07-01 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Effective field theory provides a way of parameterizing strong-field deviations from General Relativity that might be observable in the gravitational waves emitted in a black hole merger. To perform numerical simulations of mergers in such theories it is necessary that the equations be written in a form that admits a well-posed initial value formulation. We study gravity coupled to a scalar field including the leading (4-derivative) effective field theory corrections. We introduce a new class of "modified harmonic" gauges and gauge-fixed equations of motion, such that, at weak coupling, the equations are strongly hyperbolic and therefore admit a well-posed initial value formulation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.04327,
  title  = {Well-posed formulation of scalar-tensor effective field theory},
  author = {Aron D. Kovacs and Harvey S. Reall},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.04327},
  year   = {2020}
}

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minor changes

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:09:13.759Z