English

Cross-Section Continuity of Definitions of Angular Momentum

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2022-12-20 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics Differential Geometry math.MP

Abstract

We introduce a notion of "cross-section continuity" as a criterion for the viability of definitions of angular momentum, JJ, at null infinity: If a sequence of cross-sections, Cn{\mathcal C}_n, of null infinity converges uniformly to a cross-section C{\mathcal C}, then the angular momentum, JnJ_n, on Cn{\mathcal C}_n should converge to the angular momentum, JJ, on C{\mathcal C}. The Dray-Streubel (DS) definition of angular momentum automatically satisfies this criterion by virtue of the existence of a well defined flux associated with this definition. However, we show that the one-parameter modification of the DS definition proposed by Compere and Nichols (CN) -- which encompasses numerous other alternative definitions -- does not satisfy cross-section continuity. On the other hand, we prove that the Chen-Wang-Yau (CWY) definition does satisfy the cross-section continuity criterion.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2207.04590,
  title  = {Cross-Section Continuity of Definitions of Angular Momentum},
  author = {Po-Ning Chen and Daniel Paraizo and Robert M. Wald and Mu-Tao Wang and Ye-Kai Wang and Shing-Tung Yau},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2207.04590},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

13 pages, no figures; further details given for the calculations of section 3

R2 v1 2026-06-25T00:47:54.321Z