General relativity, gravitational energy and spin-two field

Abstract

In my lectures I will deal with three seemingly unrelated problems: i) to what extent is general relativity exceptional among metric gravity theories? ii) is it possible to define gravitational energy density applying field-theory approach to gravity? and iii) can a consistent theory of a gravitationally interacting spin-two field be developed at all? The connecting link to them is the concept of a fundamental spin-2 field. A linear spin-2 field encounters insurmountable inconsistencies when coupled to gravity. After discussing the inconsistencies of any coupling of the linear spin-2 field to gravity, I exhibit the origin of the fact that a gauge invariant field has the variational metric stress tensor which is gauge dependent. I give a general theorem explaining under what conditions a symmetry of a field Lagrangian becomes also the symmetry of the stress tensor. It is a conclusion of the theorem that any attempt to define gravitational energy density in the framework of a field theory of gravity must fail. Finally I make a very brief introduction to basic concepts of how a certain kind of a necessarily nonlinear spin-2 field arises in a natural way from vacuum higher derivative gravity theories. This specific spin-2 field consistently interacts gravitationally.