Related papers: Weiss variation for general boundaries
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…
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…
As is well known, in order for the Einstein--Hilbert action to have a well defined variation, and therefore to be used for deriving field equation through the stationary action principle, it has to be amended by the addition of a suitable…
We study asymptotically flat space-times in 3 dimensions for Einstein gravity near future null infinity and show that the boundary is described by Carrollian geometry. This is used to add sources to the BMS gauge corresponding to a…
It is common knowledge that the Einstein-Hilbert action does not furnish a well-posed variational principle. The usual solution to this problem is to add an extra boundary term to the action, called a counter-term, so that the variational…
We analyze Einstein's vacuum field equations in generalized harmonic coordinates on a compact spatial domain with boundaries. We specify a class of boundary conditions which is constraint-preserving and sufficiently general to include…
The Einstein-Hilbert action for general relativity is not well posed in terms of the metric $g_{ab}$ as a dynamical variable. There have been many proposals to obtain an well posed action principle for general relativity, e.g., addition of…
We investigate the variational principle for the gravitational field in the presence of thin shells of completely unconstrained signature (generic shells). Such variational formulations have been given before for shells of timelike and null…
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…
A new variational approach for general relativity and modified theories of gravity is presented. In addition to the metric tensor, two independent affine connections enter the action as dynamical variables. In the matter action the…
The Hamiltonian for dynamic geometry generates the evolution of a spatial region along a vector field. It includes a boundary term which determines both the value of the Hamiltonian and the boundary conditions. The value gives the…
We show that for an eikonal limit of gravity in a space-time of any dimension with a non-vanishing cosmological constant, the Einstein -- Hilbert action reduces to a boundary action. This boundary action describes the interaction of…
The Hamiltonian for dynamic geometry generates the evolution of a spatial region along a vector field. It includes a boundary term which determines both the value of the Hamiltonian and the boundary conditions. The value gives the…
The Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian has no well-defined variational derivative with respect to the metric. This issue has to be tackled by adding a suitable surface term to the action, which is a peculiar feature of gravity. We also know that…
A quasi-local energy for Einstein's general relativity is defined by the value of the preferred boundary term in the covariant Hamiltonian formalism. The boundary term depends upon a choice of reference and a time-like displacement vector…
A discussion is given of the conformal Einstein field equations coupled with matter whose energy-momentum tensor is trace-free. These resulting equations are expressed in terms of a generic Weyl connection. The article shows how in the…
The field equations of general relativity can be derived from the Einstein action, which is quadratic in connection coefficients, rather than the standard action involving the Gibbons-Hawking-York term and counterterm. We show that it is…
Einstein's vierbein formulation of general relativity based on the notion of distant parallelism (teleparallelism) naturally introduces a covariant surface term in addition to the Einstein-Hilbert action. We investigate the action principle…
The various roles of boundary terms in the gravitational Lagrangian and Hamiltonian are explored. A symplectic Hamiltonian-boundary-term approach is ideally suited for a large class of quasilocal energy-momentum expressions for general…
Kossowski and Kriele derived boundary conditions on the metric at a surface of signature change. We point out that their derivation is based not only on certain smoothness assumptions but also on a postulated form of the Einstein field…