James Gilmore

General Relativity is the standard framework by which all gravitational systems are analyzed in modern research, and it provides the theme for all the investigations in this thesis. Beyond this common platform, very different gravitating problems are examined here, and several analytical approaches are used to investigate these systems. Effective field theory, a methodological approach prominent in quantum field theory, plays an important role in the analysis of two of the problems in this thesis. In the first instance, an effective field theory for bound gravitational states is used to compute the interaction Lagrangian of a binary system at the second post-Newtonian order. A metric parametrization based on a temporal Kaluza-Klein decomposition is also used. In this effective field theory calculation, the post-Newtonian results for the equations of motion are elegantly reproduced. In the next problem considered, effective field theory is used to investigate the thermodynamics of compactified charged black holes. The relevant thermodynamic quantities are all computed to second order in the perturbation parameter and finite size effects are incorporated through higher order worldline operators. Complete agreement is found with an exact extremal black hole solution constructed with traditional General Relativistic methods. The results indicate that the addition of charge to a compactified black hole may delay the phase transition to a black string. Finally, the third problem examined here concerns the evolution of perturbations at the end of early universe inflation. General Relativity enters this problem through cosmological perturbation theory. It is shown that the coherent oscillations in the inflaton break down at the comoving post-inflationary horizon size, about 14 e-folds after the end of inflation. This is many e-folds before any known constraints, leading to possible implications for the matching problem of inflation, and the generation of stochastic gravitational waves in the post-inflationary universe.