"Peeling property" for linearized gravity in null coordinates

A complete description of the linearized gravitational field on a flat background is given in terms of gauge-independent quasilocal quantities. This is an extension of the results from gr-qc/9801068. Asymptotic spherical quasilocal parameterization of the Weyl field and its relation with Einstein equations is presented. The field equations are equivalent to the wave equation. A generalization for Schwarzschild background is developed and the axial part of gravitational field is fully analyzed. In the case of axial degree of freedom for linearized gravitational field the corresponding generalization of the d'Alembert operator is a Regge-Wheeler equation. Finally, the asymptotics at null infinity is investigated and strong peeling property for axial waves is proved.Comment: 27 page

CYK Tensors, Maxwell Field and Conserved Quantities for Spin-2 Field

Starting from an important application of Conformal Yano--Killing tensors for the existence of global charges in gravity, some new observations at \scri^+ are given. They allow to define asymptotic charges (at future null infinity) in terms of the Weyl tensor together with their fluxes through \scri^+. It occurs that some of them play a role of obstructions for the existence of angular momentum. Moreover, new relations between solutions of the Maxwell equations and the spin-2 field are given. They are used in the construction of new conserved quantities which are quadratic in terms of the Weyl tensor. The obtained formulae are similar to the functionals obtained from the Bel--Robinson tensor.Comment: 20 pages, LaTe

Rigid spheres in Riemannian spaces

Choice of an appropriate (3+1)-foliation of spacetime or a (2+1)-foliation of the Cauchy space, leads often to a substantial simplification of various mathematical problems in General Relativity Theory. We propose a new method to construct such foliations. For this purpose we define a special family of topological two-spheres, which we call "rigid spheres". We prove that there is a four-parameter family of rigid spheres in a generic Riemannian three-manifold (in case of the flat Euclidean three-space these four parameters are: 3 coordinates of the center and the radius of the sphere). The rigid spheres can be used as building blocks for various ("spherical", "bispherical" etc.) foliations of the Cauchy space. This way a supertranslation ambiguity may be avoided. Generalization to the full 4D case is discussed. Our results generalize both the Huang foliations (cf. \cite{LHH}) and the foliations used by us (cf. \cite{JKL}) in the analysis of the two-body problem.Comment: 23 page

Energy and angular momentum of the weak gravitational waves on the Schwarzschild background -- quasilocal gauge-invariant formulation

It is shown that the axial and polar perturbations of the spherically symmetric black hole can be described in a gauge-invariant way. The reduced phase space describing gravitational waves outside of the horizon is described by the gauge-invariant quantities. Both degrees of freedom fulfill generalized scalar wave equation. For the axial degree of freedom the radial part of the equation corresponds to the Regge-Wheeler result (Phys. Rev. 108, 1063-1069 (1957)) and for the polar one we get Zerilli result (Phys. Rev. D2, 2141-2160 (1970)), see also Chandrasekhar (The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes,(Clarendon Press Oxford, 1983)), Moncrief (Annals of Physics 88, 323-342 (1974)) for both. An important ingredient of the analysis is the concept of quasilocality which does duty for the separation of the angular variables in the usual approach. Moreover, there is no need to represent perturbations by normal modes (with time dependence $\exp(-ikt)$), we have fields in spacetime and the Cauchy problem for them is well defined outside of the horizon. The reduced symplectic structure explains the origin of the axial and polar invariants. It allows to introduce an energy and angular momentum for the gravitational waves which is invariant with respect to the gauge transformations. Both generators represent quadratic approximation of the ADM nonlinear formulae in terms of the perturbations of the Schwarzschild metric. We also discuss the boundary-initial value problem for the linearized Einstein equations on a Schwarzschild background outside of the horizon.Comment: 23 page

Asymptotic Conformal Yano--Killing Tensors for Schwarzschild Metric

The asymptotic conformal Yano--Killing tensor proposed in J. Jezierski, On the relation between metric and spin-2 formulation of linearized Einstein theory [GRG, in print (1994)] is analyzed for Schwarzschild metric and tensor equations defining this object are given. The result shows that the Schwarzschild metric (and other metrics which are asymptotically ``Schwarzschildean'' up to O(1/r^2) at spatial infinity) is among the metrics fullfilling stronger asymptotic conditions and supertranslations ambiguities disappear. It is also clear from the result that 14 asymptotic gravitational charges are well defined on the ``Schwarzschildean'' background.Comment: 8 pages, latex, no figure

Pair of null gravitating shells II. Canonical theory and embedding variables

The study of the two shell system started in our first paper ``Pair of null gravitating shells I'' (gr-qc/0112060) is continued. An action functional for a single shell due to Louko, Whiting and Friedman is generalized to give appropriate equations of motion for two and, in fact, any number of spherically symmetric null shells, including the cases when the shells intersect. In order to find the symplectic structure for the space of solutions described in paper I, the pull back to the constraint surface of the Liouville form determined by the action is transformed into new variables. They consist of Dirac observables, embeddings and embedding momenta (the so-called Kucha\v{r} decomposition). The calculation includes the integration of a set of coupled partial differential equations. A general method of solving the equations is worked out.Comment: 20 pages, Latex file using amstex, some references correcte

Uniqueness of the mass in the radiating regime

The usual approaches to the definition of energy give an ambiguous result for the energy of fields in the radiating regime. We show that for a massless scalar field in Minkowski space-time the definition may be rendered unambiguous by adding the requirement that the energy cannot increase in retarded time. We present a similar theorem for the gravitational field, proved elsewhere, which establishes that the Trautman-Bondi energy is the unique (up to a multiplicative factor) functional, within a natural class, which is monotonic in time for all solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations admitting a smooth ``piece'' of conformal null infinity Scri.Comment: 8 pages, revte

Conformal Yano-Killing tensor for the Kerr metric and conserved quantities

Properties of (skew-symmetric) conformal Yano--Killing tensors are reviewed. Explicit forms of three symmetric conformal Killing tensors in Kerr spacetime are obtained from the Yano--Killing tensor. The relation between spin-2 fields and solutions to the Maxwell equations is used in the construction of a new conserved quantity which is quadratic in terms of the Weyl tensor. The formula obtained is similar to the functional obtained from the Bel--Robinson tensor and is examined in Kerr spacetime. A new interpretation of the conserved quantity obtained is proposed.Comment: 29 page

Energy-minimizing two black holes initial data

An attempt to construct the ``ground state'' vacuum initial data for the gravitational field surrounding two black holes is presented. The ground state is defined as the gravitational initial data minimizing the ADM mass within the class of data for which the masses of the holes and their distance are fixed. To parameterize different geometric arrangements of the two holes (and, therefore, their distance) we use an appropriately chosen scale factor. A method for analyzing the variations of the ADM mass and the masses (areas) of the horizons in terms of gravitational degrees of freedom is proposed. The Misner initial data are analyzed in this context: it is shown that they do not minimize the ADM mass.Comment: Minor corrections, 2 references adde

Dynamics of a self gravitating light-like matter shell: a gauge-invariant Lagrangian and Hamiltonian description

A complete Lagrangian and Hamiltonian description of the theory of self-gravitating light-like matter shells is given in terms of gauge-independent geometric quantities. For this purpose the notion of an extrinsic curvature for a null-like hypersurface is discussed and the corresponding Gauss-Codazzi equations are proved. These equations imply Bianchi identities for spacetimes with null-like, singular curvature. Energy-momentum tensor-density of a light-like matter shell is unambiguously defined in terms of an invariant matter Lagrangian density. Noether identity and Belinfante-Rosenfeld theorem for such a tensor-density are proved. Finally, the Hamiltonian dynamics of the interacting system: ``gravity + matter'' is derived from the total Lagrangian, the latter being an invariant scalar density.Comment: 20 pages, RevTeX4, no figure