Conservation laws for colliding branes with induced gravity

Abstract

We derive conservation laws for collisions of self-gravitating $n$-branes (or $n$-dimensional shells) in an $(n+2)$ dimensional spacetime including induced gravity on the brane. Previous work has shown how geometrical identities in general relativity enforce conservation of energy-momentum at collisions. The inclusion of induced gravity terms introduces a gravitational self-energy on the brane which permits energy-momentum conservation of matter fields on the brane to be broken, so long as the total energy-momentum, including induced gravity terms, is conserved. We give simple examples with two branes (one ingoing and one outgoing) and three branes.