Classical Gravitational Wave Tails from Soft Theorem (April 18, 2025)

This lecture by Ashoke Sen explores how the classical soft graviton theorem can determine the power law fall-off of gravitational waveforms resulting from massive object collisions in space. Learn how gravitational waves are emitted when massive objects collide and disperse, potentially forming black holes, and understand why calculating detailed gravitational waveforms is challenging due to gravity's non-linearity and complex non-gravitational interactions during collisions. Discover how the soft graviton theorem provides insights into the early and late-time behavior of these waveforms, including logarithmic corrections, based solely on the momenta of incoming and outgoing objects rather than the collision details. The presentation covers the results, outlines their derivation, and discusses potential generalizations and applications of this theoretical framework.