Tidal interactions in compact binaries

Abstract: Tidal interactions have an important impact on the orbital and radiative dynamics of compact binaries. While many relevant tidal effects have an analog in Newtonian gravity, a general-relativistic treatment is necessary to capture relativistic corrections and qualitatively new effects — like gravitational radiation and gravitomagnetic tides – that arise in the presence of compact objects. I will review the relativistic theory of tidal deformations, sketch out some perturbative calculations for neutron star binaries, and (time permitting) briefly discuss tidal disruption, dynamical tides and the tidal deformation of black holes.