Evaluating small sphere limit of the Wang-Yau quasi-local energy (Q2413060)

The authors of the article develop and use the small sphere limit approach of the Wang-Yau quasilocal energy defined by these authors in a series of papers [\textit{M.-T. Wang} and \textit{S.-T. Yau}, ibid. 288, No. 3, 919--942 (2009; Zbl 1195.53039)]. The authors develop a method to find the critical points of the quasilocal energy. The authors' method is quite similar to Chen's method (2011), which is based on a large sphere contracting procedure. In this case, a natural solution coincideS with the minimum of the quasi-local energy. This method was applied in space-times with matter. For a vacuum space-time the quasilocal energy vanishes to high order, and the solution of the so called optimal embedding equation is more complicated. Nevertheless, the authors after a straightforward computation, show that the solution in this case correspondS to a local minimum, which is related to the Bel-Robinson tensor. The authors' work, together with an earlier work by the first author et al. [ibid. 308, No. 3, 845--863 (2011; Zbl 1269.83024)], completes the proof of the consistency of the Wang-Yau quasilocal energy with all classical approaches.