Effective Field Theory for Extreme Mass Ratio Binaries.

We derive an effective field theory describing a pair of gravitationally interacting point particles in an expansion in their mass ratio, also known as the self-force (SF) expansion. The 0SF dynamics are trivially obtained to all orders in Newton's constant by the geodesic motion of the light body in a Schwarzschild background encoding the gravitational field of the heavy body. The corrections at 1SF and higher are generated by perturbations about this configuration-that is, the geodesic deviation of the light body and the fluctuation graviton-but crucially supplemented by an operator describing the recoil of the heavy body as it interacts with the smaller companion.