On certain global conformal invariants and 3-surface twistors of initial data sets

Abstract

The Chern-Simons functionals built from various connections determined by the initial data $h_{μν}$, $χ_{μν}$ on a 3-manifold $Σ$ are investigated. First it is shown that for asymptotically flat data sets the logarithmic fall-off for $h_{μν}$ and $rχ_{μν}$ is the necessary and sufficient condition of the existence of these functionals. The functional $Y_{k,l}$, built in the vector bundle corresponding to the irreducible representation of SL(2,C) labelled by (k,l), is shown to be determined by the Ashtekar-Chern-Simons functional and its complex conjugate. $Y_{k,l}$ is conformally invariant precisely in the l=k (i.e. tensor) representations. An unexpected connection with twistor theory is found: $Y_{k,k}$ can be written as the Chern-Simons functional built from the 3-surface twistor connection, and the not identically vanishing spinor parts of the 3-surface twistor curvature are given by the variational derivatives of $Y_{k,k}$ with respect to $h_{μν}$ and $χ_{μν}$. The time derivative $\dot Y_{k,k}$ of $Y_{k,k}$ is another conformal invariant of the initial data set, and for vanishing $\dot Y_{k,k}$, in particular for all Petrov III and N spacetimes, the Chern-Simons functional is a conformal invariant of the whole spacetime.