Note about the gravitational energy and Bel-Robinson tensor

Enrique Lozano

Academia de Fsica, Instituto de Educacion Media Superior del D.F. IEMS,

San Lorenzo N 290 Col. Del Valle Sur, Del. Benito Juarez, C.P. 03100, Mexico, D.F., Mexico.
lozanoochoaenrique@yahoo.com.mx

Abstract

In this note are presented some reections about the gravitational energy and using the
structural similarity between the Maxwells equations and the gravitational elds equations are
obtained the covariantly conserved currents, one of them is the Bel-Robinson tensor.

Energy is one of the central concepts in physics and its usefulness in other branches of science
is unquestionable, possibly the physical concept with more social impact. Its success is that energy
is a number that can serve as a bargaining chip to compare dierent systems and processes. In
the vast majority of phenomena where the concept of energy is used, is assumed that physical
events occurring in Galileian space-time or in Minkowski space-time, in both space-times, there
is a globally timelike Killings vector, that allows us to construct a Hamiltonian, which we can
associated with the energy of the system, and therefore, establish conservation theorems, in other
words, no matter the physical events that occur, if is taken the physical system large enough and
takes into account all forms of energy we conclude that the total energy is constant in time. All the
above scheme can not be sustained from the standpoint of the General Relativity Theory (GR),
for several reasons, the rst one consist in that physical events do not occur in the space-time
on the contrary, the physical events generate the space-time and determine its shape. Another
reason is that for each space-time that solve the Einsteins eld equations, there is not necessarily
a timelike global Killing vector that allow us to construct a Hamiltonian, even if the space-time
has a structure M = R which permits a foliation of the space-time with hipersurfaces of type
likespace without intersection, in this case we can obtain the hamiltonian constraint for the GR
which is identically zero. Other observation is relevant here, when we generalize the Lagrangian
formalism of physical systems with a discrete set of degrees of freedom, to physical systems with an
innite set of degrees of freedom, the Hamiltonian is generalized to the energy-momentum tensor.
In the Lagrangian formalism there are two procedures to obtain the energy-momentum tensor,
the Noether-Belinfante method and the metrical-variational method [1-2], the rst one has several
inconveniences, for example, its not guaranteed that the energy-momentum tensor is symmetric
and gauge invariant. The second method corrects the inconveniences of the rst, and give us the
right answer at least for the important lagrangians such as: scalar eld, Proca, Yang-Mills (included
the Electromagnetism as particular case) [3]. If this basic observation applies to Lagrangian of GR

1
we have,
( )
2 c4
total
Tab = SEH (gab ) + SM (i , gab )
g g ab 16G
c4
= Gab + Tab = 0, (1)
8G
therefore in GR the total energy-momentum is null [4], this property is general but has particular
relevance in Quantum Cosmology, where has been suggested that the energy-momentum of the
universe is zero [5-7]. The GR is essentially dierent to the Special Relativity Theory and some
physical concepts and ideas rooted in Special Relativity, simply cease to be valid, for example,
there is not a true conservation law of energy and momentum, except in the limit case for an
isolated mass in a space-time asymptotically at at an innite distance, in which case T = 0
correspond with a conservation law [8]. The above is due to space-time curvature, where the value
acquired by the components of the vectors and tensors depend on the path chosen for the parallel
transport, this prevents dene unequivocally a net balance of these quantities in a point.

If one insist in having a conservation law in the conventional sense (i.e. using a partial
derivative with respect to time, as in the case of the Minkowski space-time or in the Galilean),
the mathematical objects obtained, are not uniquely dened, and they are coordinate dependent,
called complex tensors o pseudotensors, among which are the following: Einsteins, Tolmams,
Papapetrous, Bergmann-Thompsons, Landau-Liftshitzs, Weinbergs ([9]-[14], for a comprehensive
review on the energy-momentum pseudotensors and some recent important results on this topic,
see [15]). This approach tacitly accepts that the gravitational energy-momentum tensor has no
single denition, even more, the value of gravitational energy depends on the coordinate system,
in others words, the covariance is lost. It can be said, for this approach, that each observer can
make measurements that are relevant, and give name to these measures seems appropriate. All
these pseudotensors correspond, more or less, to the same physical idea, as was demonstrated by
Aguirregabiria, Chamorro and Virbhadra [16], who continued the calculation started by Gurses and
Gursey [17] and obtained that the energy-momentum complexes of Einstein, Landau and Lifshitz,
Papapetrou and Weinberg give the same result for the energy distribution for any Kerr-Schild
metric when calculated in cartesian coordinates.

Other important line of research to dene the gravitational energy are the nonlocal proce-
dures: Quasilocal procedures which are associated with closed two-surfaces in spacetime to dene
the mass, and can be derived from a rst-principles approach from the gravitational action via the
Hamilton-Jacobi method, example of these are, Hawking, Penrose, Ludvigsen-Vickers, Bergqvist-
Ludvigsen, Dougan-Mason and Hayward. Global procedures associated with the whole spacetime,
provided it is asymptotically at, like Komar, ADM, Bondi mass (see the review [18] and the ref-
erences cited therein). Again here we have dierent denitions, that when applied to a specic
physical system not necessarily coincide. In favor of this approach we can mention that all mea-
surement processes are quasilocal, and this is an issue that must be investigate in detail, and that
the global procedures are the only fully established and accepted.

Pseudotensors are related to quasilocal methods [19], and just as there are an innite number
of pseudotensores associated with superpotentials, in similar way, for each quasilocal quantity, there
is also an innite number of possible boundary terms for the volume over which integration is

2
performed, and each border term correspond with a pseudotensor.

In GR, the energy is not the central concept, is just an element like others, that should be
taken in account, to decribe the gravitational phenomena. In particular the gravitational energy is
not well-dened in GR. It is the context where we want to place the old problem about the location
of the gravitational energy which can be enunciate as follow:

by the equivalence principle we can always go to an inertial frame where, the eects of
gravity are absent, if done this for each and all of the points of space-time, then, where is the
energy associated with the gravitational eld?

To analyze this question, consider eectively any point of the space-time and choose a refer-
ence frame in such a way that it must be inertial, in this frame, a test particle will fall freely. In
such frame, the total energy-momentum tensor should be zero, and it would have to be then zero
in all reference frames in concordance with the equation (1). There is no conict here between the
equivalence principle and the mathematical approach. We will address the sensible part: Where
is the energy associated with the gravitational eld? In this point we must have to be precise,
it is not possible to answer in a clear and convincing way to the question because it is not well
dened provided that gravity energy concept is doesnt have a precise denition accepted by all
the community. In this point, the author agrees with the Wheelers opinion when he wrote about
this wrong question [20] (pag. 467). It is not enough to ignore the question, lets analyze the
situation from a physical perspective, and to simplify the analysis lets consider some solutions of
the Einstein equations in the vacuum, for example, the Kerr black hole or a gravitational wave,
in both cases the energy-momentum tensor Tab is zero as well as the Einsteins tensor, but this
dont means that these space-times are trivial nor that they are at space-times. For instance,
suppose two nearby test particles, in some one of the space-times mentioned, the particles will
follow geodesic paths that may approach or separate according to the case, being this a perfectly
measurable eect, which can be interpreted as the gravitational eld or as a consequence of the
space-time curvature. The above shows the need to analyze the Riemann tensor, which is the one
that has the information of the space-time curvature. As a rst element of analysis we take the
divergency of the Riemann tensor and using the Einstein eld equations we can write the following
pair of equations
a Ra bcd = Jbcd , (2)
[a Rbc]de = 0, (3)
here = 8G c4
is the Einsteins constant, the gravitational current is dened by Jbcd = 2[c Td]b +
gb[c d] T . This pair of equations show a formal resemblance with the Maxwells equations namely:

a F ab = 0 J b ,
[a Fbc] = 0, (4)

where 0 is the magnetic permittivity of the vacuum, Fab is the electromagnetic eld-strength
tensor or Faraday tensor and J a is the current vector. Is well known that even without explicitly
solving its equations of motion, it is possible to obtain general results from them, e.g., the charge
conservation
a J a = 0, (5)

3
or
a T ab = 0 F ba Ja , (6)
which correspond with energy and momentum conservation (all of this in the case of Special Rela-
tivity Theory). This analogy lead us to change the original question: where is the energy associated
with the gravitational? for the following: beginning from the General Relativity: which are covari-
antly constant quantities associated with the Riemann tensor?

Lets start with the gravitational equivalent to charge conservation (5), for which we take
again the divergence of the equation (2) con respecto al indice b y usando la expresion para el
conmutador de las derivadas covariantes de un tensor de cuarto orden y las propiedades de simetria
y antisimetria del tensor de Riemman se obtiene [b , a ]Rabcd = 0, de lo cual se deduce lo siguiente

a Jabc = 0. (7)

The gravitational analogous to the conservation of energy and momentum is little more involved,
because there are more index and we want a totally symmetric object, keeping this in mind and
proceeding in similar way to electromagnetic case, but now with equation (2) we write

Rk bc m a Rabcl = Rk bc m J bcl , Rk bc l a Rabcm = Rk bc l J bcm , (8)

y apartir de la segunda identidad de Bianchi (3) obtenemos las siguientes relaciones

1 1
Rabc l a Rkbcm = Rabc l k Rabcm , Rabc m a Rkbcl = Rabc m k Rabcl , (9)
2 2
using the Leibnizs Rule for the covariant derivative in (8) y sustituyendo en donde corresponda
(9) tenemos las dos expresiones
1
a (Rk bc m Rabcl ) Rabc l k Rabcm = Rk bc m J bcl (10)
2
1
a (Rk bc l Rabcm ) Rabc m k Rabcl = Rk bc l J bcm (11)
2
Sumando las dos ecuaciones anteriores y reacomodando los indices tenemos

a T kmal = (Rk bc m J bcl + Rk bc l J bcm ), (12)

here T kmal = Rk bc m Rabcl + Rk bc l Rabcm 12 g ak Rabc m Rabcl is the Bel tensor [21], el cual es comple-
tamente simetrico y covariantemente constante en el vacio (para mas propiedades ver [21-22]). En
(12) se presentan acoplamientos entre el tensor de Riemann y la corriente gravitacional que deben
la ser estudiandos en detalle, por ejemplo, para un espacio-tiempo de Einstein (e.i. Rab = gab ) o
en el caso del vacio tenemos
a T akml = 0, (13)
Las deduccion de las ecuaciones (7) and (12) arrojan luz sobre el signicado del tensor de Bel,
esta deduccion es simple e intuitiva, el autor se siente sorprendido por no haber encontrado esta
presentacion reportada en la literatura, por este motivo considero necesario escribir esta nota.

Finally the author wish to thank ****** for his helpful discussions.

4
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