An effective field theory approach to tidal dynamics of spinning astrophysical systems

Abstract

We develop a description of tidal effects in astrophysical systems using effective field theory techniques. While our approach is equally capable of describing objects in the Newtonian regime (e.g. moons, rocky planets, main sequence stars, etc.) as well as relativistic objects (e.g. neutron stars and black holes), in this paper we focus special attention on the Newtonian regime. In this limit, we recover the dynamical equations for the "weak friction model" with additional corrections due to tidal and rotational deformations.