Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2013/iii/paper-49/2/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 49 2 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The separation of the stars is . Newton's law of universal gravitation and circular acceleration giveTo leading nonrelativistic order, the mass density is the sum of the two translated point-mass Dirac delta distributions. Thuswith all components involving zero. The trace is , a constant. Define the trace-free mass quadrupole moment ; its third derivatives equal those of . If , thenBoth off-diagonal entries count in the contraction. Therefore , independent of phase. The quadrupole formula gives the equal-mass circular-binary quadrupole luminosityRestoring units, andHere is each star's radius about the centre of mass, not the separation. The rest-frame prescription supplies the leading mass density; a moving star does not still have zero momentum density and spatial stress. The calculation uses the assumed quadrupole formula and the Newtonian orbit rather than imposing those rest-frame zeros on the moving binary.
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