Motivated by the previous result, Blanchet and Faye [36, 39
] introduced their “extended” Hadamard
regularization, the one we outlined in Section 8.1. This new regularization is mathematically well-defined
and free of ambiguities; in particular it yields unique results for the computation of any of the integrals
occuring in the 3PN equations of motion. Unfortunately, the extended Hadamard regularization turned out
to be in a sense incomplete, because it was found [37
, 38
] that the 3PN equations of motion involve one
and only one unknown numerical constant, called
, which cannot be determined within the method. The
comparison of this result with the work of Jaranowski and Schäfer [139
, 140
], on the basis of the
computation of the invariant energy of compact binaries moving on circular orbits, showed [37
] that
Damour, Jaranowski, and Schäfer [95] recovered the value of
given in Equation (132
) by
directly proving that this value is the unique one for which the global Poincaré invariance of the
ADM-Hamiltonian formalism is verified. Since the coordinate conditions associated with the ADM
formalism do not manifestly respect the Poincaré symmetry, they had to prove that the 3PN
Hamiltonian is compatible with the existence of generators for the Poincaré algebra. By contrast, the
harmonic-coordinate conditions preserve the Poincaré invariance, and therefore the associated equations of
motion at 3PN order should be manifestly Lorentz-invariant, as was indeed found to be the case in
Refs. [37
, 38
].
The appearance of one and only one physical unknown coefficient in the equations of motion
constitutes a quite striking fact, that is related specifically with the use of a Hadamard-type
regularization24.
Technically speaking, the presence of the ambiguity parameter
is associated with the non-distributivity
of Hadamard’s regularization, in the sense of Equation (123
). Mathematically speaking,
is probably
related to the fact that it is impossible to construct a distributional derivative operator, such as
Equations (129
, 130
, 131
), satisfying the Leibniz rule for the derivation of the product [198]. The Einstein
field equations can be written in many different forms, by shifting the derivatives and operating some terms
by parts with the help of the Leibniz rule. All these forms are equivalent in the case of regular sources, but
since the derivative operator (129
, 130
, 131
) violates the Leibniz rule they become inequivalent for point
particles. Finally, physically speaking, let us argue that
has its root in the fact that in a complete
computation of the equations of motion valid for two regular extended weakly self-gravitating bodies,
many non-linear integrals, when taken individually, start depending, from the 3PN order, on
the internal structure of the bodies, even in the “compact-body” limit where the radii tend to
zero. However, when considering the full equations of motion, we expect that all the terms
depending on the internal structure can be removed, in the compact-body limit, by a coordinate
transformation (or by some appropriate shifts of the central world lines of the bodies), and
that finally
is given by a pure number, for instance a rational fraction, independent of the
details of the internal structure of the compact bodies. From this argument (which could be
justified by the effacing principle in general relativity) the value of
is necessarily the one we
compute below, Equation (135
), and will be valid for any compact objects, for instance black
holes.
The ambiguity parameter , which is in factor of some static, velocity-independent term, and
hence cannot be derived by invoking Lorentz invariance, was computed by Damour, Jaranowski, and
Schäfer [96
] by means of dimensional regularization, instead of some Hadamard-type one, within the
ADM-Hamiltonian formalism. Their result is
The ambiguity parameter is fixed from the result (134
) and the necessary link (133
) provided by the
equivalence between the harmonic-coordinates and ADM-Hamiltonian formalisms [37
, 97
]. However,
was also been computed directly by Blanchet, Damour, and Esposito-Farèse [30
] applying dimensional
regularization to the 3PN equations of motion in harmonic coordinates (in the line of Refs. [37
, 38
]). The
end result,
Let us comment here that the use of a self-field regularization, be it dimensional or based on
Hadamard’s partie finie, signals a somewhat unsatisfactory situation on the physical point of view, because,
ideally, we would like to perform a complete calculation valid for extended bodies, taking into account
the details of the internal structure of the bodies (energy density, pressure, internal velocity
field, etc.). By considering the limit where the radii of the objects tend to zero, one should
recover the same result as obtained by means of the point-mass regularization. This would
demonstrate the suitability of the regularization. This program was undertaken at the 2PN order by
Kopeikin et al. [149, 127] who derived the equations of motion of two extended fluid balls, and
obtained equations of motion depending only on the two masses and
of the compact
bodies26.
At the 3PN order we expect that the extended-body program should give the value of the regularization
parameter
(maybe after some gauge transformation to remove the terms depending on the internal
structure). Ideally, its value should be confirmed by independent and more physical methods (like those of
Refs. [214, 150, 101]).
An important work, in several respects more physical than the formal use of regularizations, is the one
of Itoh and Futamase [133, 132
], following previous investigations in Refs. [134, 135]. These
authors derived the 3PN equations of motion in harmonic coordinates by means of a particular
variant of the famous “surface-integral” method introduced long ago by Einstein, Infeld, and
Hoffmann [106]. The aim is to describe extended relativistic compact binary systems in the
strong-field point particle limit defined in Ref. [115]. This approach is very interesting because it is
based on the physical notion of extended compact bodies in general relativity, and is free of
the problems of ambiguities due to the Hadamard self-field regularization. The end result of
Refs. [133
, 132
] is in agreement with the 3PN harmonic coordinates equations of motion [37
, 38
] and,
moreover, is unambiguous, as it does determine the ambiguity parameter
to exactly the
value (135
).
We next consider the problem of the binary’s radiation field, where the same phenomenon occurs, with
the appearance of some Hadamard regularization ambiguity parameters at 3PN order. More precisely,
Blanchet, Iyer, and Joguet [45], in their computation of the 3PN compact binary’s mass quadrupole
moment
, found it necessary to introduce three Hadamard regularization constants
,
, and
,
which are additional to and independent of the equation-of-motion related constant
. The total
gravitational-wave flux at 3PN order, in the case of circular orbits, was found to depend on a single
combination of the latter constants,
, and the binary’s orbital phase, for circular
orbits, involves only the linear combination of
and
given by
, as shown
in [40
].
Dimensional regularization (instead of Hadamard’s) has next been applied by Blanchet,
Damour, Esposito-Farèse, and Iyer [31, 32
] to the computation of the 3PN radiation
field of compact binaries, leading to the following unique values for the ambiguity
parameters27:
The determination of the parameters (136) completes the problem of the general relativistic prediction
for the templates of inspiralling compact binaries up to 3PN order (and actually up to 3.5PN order as the
corresponding tail terms have already been determined [19
]). The relevant combination of the
parameters (136
) entering the 3PN energy flux in the case of circular orbits is now fixed to be
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