English

On the Stress Tensor for Asymptotically Flat Gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

The recent introduction of a boundary stress tensor for asymptotically flat spacetimes enabled a new construction of energy, momentum, and Lorentz charges. These charges are known to generate the asymptotic symmetries of the theory, but their explicit formulas are not identical to previous constructions in the literature. This paper corrects an earlier comparison with other approaches, including terms in the definition of the stress tensor charges that were previously overlooked. We show that these terms either vanish identically (for d > 4) or take a form that does not contribute to the conserved charges (for d=4). This verifies the earlier claim that boundary stress tensor methods for asymptotically flat spacetimes yield the same conserved charges as other approaches. We also derive some additional connections between the boundary stress tensor and the electric part of the Weyl tensor.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0804.2079,
  title  = {On the Stress Tensor for Asymptotically Flat Gravity},
  author = {Robert B. Mann and Donald Marolf and Robert McNees and Amitabh Virmani},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.2079},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

31 pages, no figure

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:30:20.611Z