Charged black-hole binary radiation at second post-Newtonian order
Abstract
In this work, we build on Ref.~[Phys.~Rev.~D 112, 124060 (2025)], where we derived the dynamics of an electrically charged binary system at second post-Newtonian (2PN) order, by extending the analysis, at the same PN accuracy, to the associated emission of electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. We focus on non-spinning binaries that evolve quasi-adiabatically along a sequence of circular orbits, and compute the 2PN expression for the corresponding total energy flux at infinity. With respect to the well-known case of a neutral binary, the presence of charge induces both a new leading-order electromagnetic contribution of dipolar nature and additional charge-dependent corrections in the gravitational sector. To account for this richer phenomenology, we extend both the PN-matched multipolar post-Minkowskian and the effective field theory approaches to the radiation sector of charged binaries, with exact agreement for the contributions computed independently in both formalisms. We derive the radiative symmetric-trace-free multipole moments of the vector and gravitational fields at 2PN order. In doing so, we also compute 2PN-accurate charge-dependent corrections to the spherical multipoles of the waveform emitted by the binary, including a new memory contribution sourced by the stress-energy tensor of the electromagnetic radiation. These results lay the foundation for developing accurate waveform models capable of assessing the observational signatures of electric charge in gravitational-wave signals.
Related
- Binary Black Holes in Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton Theory: Second Post-Newtonian Dynamics from Effective Field Theory
- Perturbations, eikonal limit and Hawking radiation of diverse external fields in a non-minimal charged black hole
- A local second law for black hole dynamics in the charged large D membrane paradigm
- Gravitational waves from highly charged binary black holes in Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory
- Constraints on ultralight bosons from merging binary and remnant black holes observed during the second and third parts of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run
BibTeX
@misc{placidi2026charged,
title = {{Charged black-hole binary radiation at second post-Newtonian order}},
author = {Andrea Placidi and Elisa Grilli and Matteo Pegorin and Marta Orselli},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.02825},
eprint = {2609.02825},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.02825},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Charged black-hole binary radiation at second post-Newtonian order
AU - Andrea Placidi
AU - Elisa Grilli
AU - Matteo Pegorin
AU - Marta Orselli
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/16
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.02825
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.02825
AB - In this work, we build on Ref.~[Phys.~Rev.~D 112, 124060 (2025)], where we derived the dynamics of an electrically charged binary system at second post-Newtonian (2PN) order, by extending the analysis, at the same PN accuracy, to the associated emission of electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. We focus on non-spinning binaries that evolve quasi-adiabatically along a sequence of circular orbits, and compute the 2PN expression for the corresponding total energy flux at infinity. With respect to the well-known case of a neutral binary, the presence of charge induces both a new leading-order electromagnetic contribution of dipolar nature and additional charge-dependent corrections in the gravitational sector. To account for this richer phenomenology, we extend both the PN-matched multipolar post-Minkowskian and the effective field theory approaches to the radiation sector of charged binaries, with exact agreement for the contributions computed independently in both formalisms. We derive the radiative symmetric-trace-free multipole moments of the vector and gravitational fields at 2PN order. In doing so, we also compute 2PN-accurate charge-dependent corrections to the spherical multipoles of the waveform emitted by the binary, including a new memory contribution sourced by the stress-energy tensor of the electromagnetic radiation. These results lay the foundation for developing accurate waveform models capable of assessing the observational signatures of electric charge in gravitational-wave signals.
ER -