centra

One of the primary candidate sources of gravitational wave signals falls under the category of large mass binary systems. In particular, extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) systems such as that of a compact solar mass object (mass m) inspiralling into a black hole of 1,000 to 100,000,000 solar masses (mass M) are expected to be detectable by the LISA gravitational wave detector out to Gpc distances. In modelling such a system, the smaller mass is seen to exert a force on itself which we call the self-force. The computation of this self-force is of fundamental importance to the accurate calculation of the orbital evolution of such binary systems and hence to the prediction of the gravitational radiation waveform. In this talk, I will give a general introduction to the self-force problem and discuss efforts at University College Dublin to find a solution.