Steve Detweiler,
Professor of physics in the
IFT and the
Physics Department of the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the
University of Florida in Gainesville FL

Office: 2071 New Physics Building
Phone: 352.392.4948
fax : 352.392.0524
email: det at phys.ufl.edu

My (not up to date) department web page.

My recent courses:
PHY 3221 , Classical Mechanics
PHY 2060 , Enriched Physics with Calculus I

Recent teaching:
    Spring 2011: PHY 3221 Mechanics I
    Fall 2010: PHY 2060 Enriched physics with calculus I, mechanics I
    Spring 2010: PHY 3221 Mechanics I
    Fall 2009: PHY 1033 Discovering Physics
    Spring 2009: PHY 2004 Applied physics, II, electricity, magnetism and circuits
    Fall 2008: PHY 2061 Enriched physics with calculus II, Electricity and magnetism
    Spring 2008: PHY 3101 Modern physics

Recent service:
    Editorial Board of Physical Review D 2010–2012.
    Referee for Physical Review D and Classical and Quantum Gravity.
    Reviewer for the National Science Foundation.
    Chair of Topical Group on Gravitation of the American Physical Society, 2010–2011.

Publication lists:
    Many of my earlier publications, from before the advent of the physics archive, are available by appending "/papers" after the html address of this page.
    NASA/SAO Astrophysics Data System ADS (pretty complete).
    SPIRES (incomplete).
    ISI Web of Science (pretty complete).
     Google Scholar (very thorough).

Research interests:
Two black holes in a close orbit about each other emit gravitational waves, which might be detectable by the LIGO or LISA projects within the next ten years. But, at this time, we know surprisingly little about the details of the final coalescence of the black holes. In particular, we are ignorant of how the amplitude and frequency of the radiation change with time. Knowledge of these details would aid immensely in our search for gravitational waves.

An offer to numerical relativists:
My colleague, Ian Vega, and I are interested in raising interest within the numerical relativity community in self-force analyses of the EMRI problem (Extreme Mass Ratio Inspiral). Together we are developing the C++ code which evaluates what we call the effective source for a point charge or mass orbiting a black hole. This code coupled with standard numerical relativity code, which solves the appropriate field equation in a curved spacetime background, would allow (we hope) a numerical relativist to get up and running pretty quickly with numerical self-force analysis. To encourage experimentation, we are putting our code in the public domain via our website Field regularization and the effective source.

Selected publications:

"High-Order Post-Newtonian Fit of the Gravitational Self-Force for Circular Orbits in the
Schwarzschild Geometry" with Luc Blanchet, Alexandre Le Tiec, and Bernard F. Whiting,
submitted to Phys. Rev D. 2010
http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.0726

"Post-Newtonian and Numerical Calculations of the Gravitational Self-Force for Circular Orbits
in the Schwarzschild Geometry" with Luc Blanchet, Alexandre Le Tiec, and Bernard F. Whiting,
submitted to Phys. Rev D. 2009
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.0207

"Self-force with (3+1) codes: a primer for numerical relativists"
with Ian Vega, Peter Diener and Wolfgang Tichy
Phys.Rev. D, 80, 084021 (2009)
http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.2138

"Elementary description of the gravitational self-force"
Summer school lecture given at the "School on Mass" (Orleans, France, June 2008)
http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.4363

"Two approaches for the gravitational self force in black hole spacetime: Comparison of numerical results"
with Norichika Sago and Leor Barack.
Phys.Rev. D78, 124024 (2008).
http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.2530.

"Consequence of the gravitational self-force for circular orbits of the Schwarzschild geometry"
Phys.Rev. D77, 124026 (2008).
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.3529 .

"Regularization of fields for self-force problems in curved spacetime: foundations and a time-domain application"
with Ian Vega.
Phys.Rev. D77, 084008 (2008).
http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.4405 .

"Perspective on gravitational self-force analyses"
This paper was chosen as one of the "Highlights of 2005/2006" by the editorial
board of Classical and Quantum Gravity
Class.Quant.Grav. 22, S681-S716 (2005).
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0501004 .

"Scalar field self-force effects on orbits about a Schwarzschild black hole,"
with Luz Maria Diaz-Rivera, Eirini Messaritaki, and Bernard Whiting.
Phys.Rev. D70, 124018 (2004).
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0410011 .

"Low multipole contributions to the gravitational self-force,"
with Eric Poisson.
Phys. Rev., D69, 084019 (2004).
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0312010 .

"Self-force of a scalar field for circular orbits about a Schwarzschild black hole,"
with Erini Messaritaki and Bernard Whiting
Phys. Rev. D67, 104016 (2003).
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0205079 .

"Self-force via a Green's function decomposition",
with Bernard Whiting,
Phy. Rev. D67, 024025 (2003).
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0202086 .

"Radiation reaction and the self-force for a point mass in general relativity,"
Phys. Rev. Lett., 86, 1931-1934 (2001).
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0011039 .

Presentations:
"Gravitational self-force effects on orbits around a non-rotating black hole,"
"Short primer of the self-force"
Capra VIII, Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire, July 12, 2005.