A Purely Relativistic Point-Source Boundary Condition for the Schwarzschild Solution

Abstract

We present a simple derivation of a point-source boundary condition for the Schwarzschild solution that relates the Schwarzschild radius to the mass of its source without appealing to the Newtonian limit. Interpretation of the Schwarzschild radius in terms of the mass of a point-like source traditionally means resorting to distant asymptotics and the safety of Newtonian gravity, but here we instead show a direct connection between a point-particle's invariant mass and the length parameter of the Schwarzschild solution it sources, fully within the framework of general relativity. As a corollary, we also explain why attempts to show this by distributional techniques often result in a physically unmotivated spatial distribution for the source stress-energy tensor.