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arXiv · 2607.28448

Dynamics of compact binary systems in massive scalar Gauss-Bonnet gravity

Iris van Gemeren·Tanja Hinderer·Stefan Vandoren
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Abstract

Inspiraling binary systems of compact objects probe gravity in strong-field regimes, thereby exploring potential higher curvature corrections to General Relativity. Parity-invariant quadratic corrections can be described by scalar-Gauss-Bonnet (sGB) theory, which involves a scalar field dynamically coupled to curvature scalars and can give rise to scalar condensates around black holes. Considering a mass for the scalar field is natural and leads to new phenomenology related to this additional scale. We compute the dynamics of a binary system of nonspinning black holes in massive sGB using the post-Newtonian (PN) approximation. We obtain solutions for the equations of motion, center-of-mass transformation, and binding energy for circular and eccentric orbits up to 1PN order, where for the first time the higher curvature coupled to scalar mass corrections are included. While most of our calculations are valid for generic scalar masses, the final explicit expressions assume that the mass is small compared to the total mass of the binary and expand to quadratic order in this ratio. We show that the scalar mass corrections to the gauge-invariant binding energy come with same and opposite sign order terms, contributing an overall opposite sign contribution in the perturbative limit, decreasing the binding energy slightly. The effects are largest for binary systems with high mass ratio and large eccentricity. Our methods and results will also be useful as a basis for computing the gravitational waves sourced by such systems.

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Iris van Gemeren, Tanja Hinderer, Stefan Vandoren. 2026-07-30. Dynamics of compact binary systems in massive scalar Gauss-Bonnet gravity. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.28448

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