Relativistic and Dynamical Love

Abstract: Gravitational waves emitted in the late inspiral of binary neutron stars are affected by their tidal deformation. We study the tidal dynamics in full general relativity through matched-asymptotic expansions and prove that the dynamical tidal response can be expanded in a complete set of modes. We further prove that the mode amplitudes satisfy an effective, forced harmonic oscillator equation, which generalizes the overlap-integral formulation of Newtonian gravity. Our relativistic treatment of dynamical tides will avoid systematic biases in future gravitational-wave parameter estimation.