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Comparison of 4.5PN and 2SF gravitational energy fluxes from quasicircular compact binaries

Niels Warburton1, Barry Wardell1, David Trestini2, Quentin Henry3, Adam Pound4, Luc Blanchet5, Leanne Durkan6, Guillaume Faye5, and Jeremy Miller7

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 084050 – Published 23 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/tzsw-kcyt

Abstract

Recent years have seen significant advances in models of gravitational waveforms emitted by quasicircular compact binaries in two regimes: the weak-field, post-Newtonian regime, in which the gravitational wave energy flux has now been calculated to fourth-and-a-half post-Newtonian order (4.5PN) [L. Blanchet et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 121402 (2023)] and the small-mass-ratio, gravitational self-force regime, in which the flux has now been calculated to second perturbative order in the mass ratio (2SF) [N. Warburton et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 151102 (2021)]. We compare these results and find evidence of mutual consistency between the two (very distinct though both first-principle) perturbative calculations.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 084050– Published 23 April, 2026
  • Received 9 August 2024
  • Revised 27 September 2025
  • Accepted 25 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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