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arXiv · 1407.8028

The trivial solution of the gravitational energy-momentum tensor problem

Abstract

In the literature one often finds the claim that there is no such thing as an energy-momentum tensor for the gravitational field, and consequently, that the total energy-momentum conservation can only be defined in terms of a gravitational energy-momentum pseudo-tensor. Nevertheless, by relaxing the assumption that gravitational energy-momentum tensor should only depend on first derivatives of the metric, the Einstein equation leads to a trivial result that gravitational energy-momentum tensor is essentially the Einstein tensor. We discuss various peculiarities of such a definition of energy-momentum are argue that all these peculiarities have a sensible physical interpretation.

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H. Nikolic. 2014-08-07. The trivial solution of the gravitational energy-momentum tensor problem. https://arxiv.org/abs/1407.8028

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