Classical gravitational self-energy from double copy

Abstract

We apply the classical double copy to the calculation of self-energy of composite systems with multipolar coupling to gravitational field, obtaining next-to-leading order results in the gravitational coupling G_N by generalizing color to kinematics replacement rules known in literature. When applied to the multipolar description of the two-body system, the self-energy diagrams studied in this work correspond to tail processes, whose physical interpretation is of radiation being emitted by the non-relativistic source, scattered by the curvature generated by the binary system and then re-absorbed by the same source. These processes contribute to the conservative two-body dynamics and the present work represents a decisive step towards the systematic use of double copy within the multipolar post-Minkowskian expansion.