Third post-Newtonian dynamics of compact binaries: Noetherian conserved quantities and equivalence between the harmonic-coordinate and ADM-Hamiltonian formalisms

A Lagrangian from which one can derive the third post-Newtonian (3PN) equations of motion of compact binaries (neglecting the radiation reaction damping) is obtained. The 3PN equations of motion were computed previously by Blanchet and Faye in harmonic coordinates. The Lagrangian depends on the harmonic-coordinate positions, velocities and accelerations of the two bodies. At the 3PN order, the appearance of one undetermined physical parameter λ reflects the incompleteness of the point-mass regularization used when deriving the equations of motion. In addition the Lagrangian involves two unphysical (gauge-dependent) constants r'₁ and r'₂ parametrizing some logarithmic terms. The expressions of the ten Noetherian conserved quantities, associated with the invariance of the Lagrangian under the Poincaré group, are computed. By performing an infinitesimal `contact' transformation of the motion, we prove that the 3PN harmonic-coordinate Lagrangian is physically equivalent to the 3PN Arnowitt-Deser-Misner Hamiltonian obtained recently by Damour, Jaranowski and Schäfer.