Can the local energy-momentum conservation laws be derived solely from field equations?

DOI10.1023/A:1026655230534zbMATH Open0941.83015arXivgr-qc/9806050WikidataQ112155486 ScholiaQ112155486MaRDI QIDQ1807341FDOQ1807341

Authors: G. Magnano, Leszek M. Sokołowski 

Publication date: 18 November 1999

Published in: General Relativity and Gravitation (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: According to a recent suggestion [1], the energy--momentum tensor for gravitating fields can be computed through a suitable rearrangement of the matter field equations, without relying on the variational definition. We show that the property observed by Accioly et al. in [1] is the consequence of a general identity, which follows from the covariance of the matter Lagrangian in much the same way as (generalized) Bianchi identities follow from the covariance of the purely gravitational Lagrangian. However, we also show that only in particular cases can this identity be used to obtain the actual form of the stress-energy tensor, while in general the method leads to ambiguities and possibly to wrong results. Moreover, in nontrivial cases the computations turn out to be more difficult than the standard variational technique.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9806050

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zbMATH Keywords

Bianchi identitiesconservation law

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) Gravitational energy and conservation laws; groups of motions (83C40)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Nonlinear gravitational Lagrangians
• Conservation laws in general relativity
• Physical versions of nonlinear gravity theories and positivity of energy
• Nonlinear Lagrangians and the significance of the metric
• Remarks on the physical metric in non-linear theories of gravitation

Cited In (2)

• Local energy-momentum conservation in scalar-tensor-like gravity with generic curvature invariants
• FROM GRAVITONS TO GRAVITY: MYTHS AND REALITY

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