The Fully Covariant Energy Momentum Stress Tensor For Gravity and the Einstein Equation in General Relativity

Abstract

We give a fully covariant energy momentum stress tensor for the gravitational field which is easily physically motivated, and which leads to a very general derivation of the Einstein equation for gravity. We do not need to assume any property of the surce matter fields' energy momentum stress tensor other than symmetry. We give a physical motivation for this choice using laser light pressure. As a consequence of our derivation, the energy momentum stress tensor for the total source matter and fields must be divergence free, when spacetime is 4 dimensional. Moreoverr, if the total source matter fields are assumed to be divergence free, then either spacetime is dimension 4 or the spacetime has constant scalar curvature.