The cosmological constant and the energy of gravitational radiation

Abstract

We propose a definition of mass for characteristic hypersurfaces in asymptotically vacuum space-times with non-vanishing cosmological constant $\Lambda \in {\mathbb R}^*$, generalising the definition of Trautman and Bondi for $\Lambda=0$. We show that our definition reduces to some standard definitions in several situations. We establish a balance formula linking the characteristic mass and a suitably defined renormalised volume of the null hypersurface, generalising the positivity identity of one of us (PTC) and Paetz proved when $\Lambda=0$.