Gravity Seminar: Donal O'Connell

(University of Edinburgh)

Title: Classical Gravity from Quantum Amplitudes

Abstract: The era of high-precision gravitational data requires a demanding new level of precision in gravitational theory. In this talk I will discuss the use of methods from quantum field theory to address the challenge. These methods totally reframe our theoretical approach to gravity, making gravity look like two copies of electrodynamics. We will see that the Schwarzschild metric is a "double copy" of the Coulomb charge, and that gravitational waveforms can be determined without ever using the Einstein equation.