A Symplectic Hamiltonian Derivation of Quasilocal Energy-Momentum for GR

Abstract

The various roles of boundary terms in the gravitational Lagrangian and Hamiltonian are explored. A symplectic Hamiltonian-boundary-term approach is ideally suited for a large class of quasilocal energy-momentum expressions for general relativity. This approach provides a physical interpretation for many of the well-known gravitational energy-momentum expressions including all of the pseudotensors, associating each with unique boundary conditions. From this perspective we find that the pseudotensors of Einstein and M{\o}ller (which is closely related to Komar's superpotential) are especially natural, but the latter has certain shortcomings. Among the infinite possibilities, we found that there are really only two Hamiltonian-boundary-term quasilocal expressions which correspond to {\em covariant} boundary conditions; they are respectively of the Dirichlet or Neumann type. Our Dirichlet expression coincides with the expression recently obtained by Katz and coworkers using Noether arguments and a fixed background. A modification of their argument yields our Neumann expression.