Related papers: A Boundary Term for the Gravitational Action with …
We revisit the action principle for general relativity motivated by the path integral approach to quantum gravity. We consider a spacetime region whose boundary has piecewise $C^2$ components, each of which can be spacelike, timelike or…
A general $f(\mathcal{R})$ gravitational theory is considered within the Palatini formalism. By applying the variational principle and the usual conditions on the boundary, we show explicitly that a surface term remains such that as in…
We propose a boundary action to complement the recently developed duality manifest actions in string and M-theory using generalized geometry. This boundary action combines the Gibbons-Hawking term with boundary pieces that were previously…
A field theory on a three-dimensional manifold is introduced, whose field equations are the constraint equations for general relativity on a three-dimensional null hypersurface. The underlying boundary action consists of two copies of the…
The Hamiltonian for physical systems and dynamic geometry generates the evolution of a spatial region along a vector field. It includes a boundary term which not only determines the value of the Hamiltonian, but also, via the boundary term…
We present a complete discussion of the boundary term in the action functional of general relativity when the boundary includes null segments in addition to the more usual timelike and spacelike segments. We confirm that ambiguities appear…
A key tenet of general relativity is the dynamical nature of space-time, ideally represented as an initial value problem. Here we explore the variational formulation of classical Einstein-Hilbert gravity as initial value problem by…
We consider Witten's open string field theory in the presence of a non-trivial boundary of spacetime. For the kinetic term, we derive a Gibbons-Hawking-type contribution that has to be added to the action to guarantee a well-defined…
We study the generally covariant theory governing an isotropic spacetime region with uniform energy density. Gibbons, Hawking and York showed that fixing the induced boundary metric yields a well-posed variational problem. However, as we…
The Weiss variational principle in mechanics and classical field theory is a variational principle which allows displacements of the boundary. We review the Weiss variation in mechanics and classical field theory, and present a novel…
In this paper we wish to find the corresponding Gibbons-Hawking-York term for the most general quadratic in curvature gravity by using Coframe slicing within the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) decomposition of spacetime in four dimensions. In…
We provide a well-defined variational principle for 3-dimensional flat space Einstein gravity by adding one half of the Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term to the bulk action. We check the 0-point function, recovering consistency with…
We analyze the structure of the boundary terms in the conformal anomaly integrated over a manifold with boundaries. We suggest that the anomalies of type B, polynomial in the Weyl tensor, are accompanied with the respective boundary terms…
Boundary term and Brown-York (BY) formalism, which is based on the Hamilton-Jacobi principle, are complimentary of each other as the gravitational actions are not, usually, well-posed. In scalar-tensor theory, which is an important…
Recent work has shown that the addition of an appropriate covariant boundary term to the gravitational action yields a well-defined variational principle for asymptotically flat spacetimes and thus leads to a natural definition of conserved…
In the decoupling limit of DGP, Pi describes the brane-bending degree of freedom. It obeys second order equations of motion, yet it is governed by a higher derivative Lagrangian. We show that, analogously to the Einstein-Hilbert action for…
A new local, covariant ``counter-term'' is used to construct a variational principle for asymptotically flat spacetimes in any spacetime dimension $ d \ge 4$. The new counter-term makes direct contact with more familiar background…
It is shown that under certain boundary conditions the virial theorem has to be modified. We analyze the origin of the extra term and compute it in particular examples. The Coulomb and harmonic oscillator with point interaction have been…
We consider $f(R)$ gravity and Born-Infeld-Einstein (BIE) gravity in formulations where the metric and connection are treated independently and integrate out the metric to find the corresponding models solely in terms of the connection, the…
A variational formulation is given for a theory of gravity coupled to a massive vector in four dimensions, with Asymptotically Lifshitz boundary conditions on the fields. For theories with critical exponent z=2 we obtain a well-defined…