The truth about the energy-momentum tensor and pseudotensor

The operational and canonical definitions of an energy-momentum tensor (EMT) are considered as well as the tensor and nontensor conservation laws. It is shown that the canonical EMT contradicts the experiments and the operational definition, the Belinfante-Rosenfeld procedure worsens the situation,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inGravitation & cosmology Vol. 20; no. 4; pp. 264 - 273
Main Author Khrapko, R. I.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01.10.2014
Subjects
Astronomy
Astrophysics and Astroparticles
Classical and Quantum Gravitation
Observations and Techniques
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Quantum Physics
Relativity Theory
Parallel Transport
Hypersurface Versus
World Point
Macroscopic Momentum
Mass Defect
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The operational and canonical definitions of an energy-momentum tensor (EMT) are considered as well as the tensor and nontensor conservation laws. It is shown that the canonical EMT contradicts the experiments and the operational definition, the Belinfante-Rosenfeld procedure worsens the situation, and the nontensor “conservation laws” are meaningless. A definition of the 4-momentum of a system demands a translator since integration of vectors is meaningless. The mass of a fluid sphere is calculated. It is shown that, according to the standard energy-momentum pseudotensor, the mass-energy of a gravitational field is positive. This contradicts the idea of a negative gravitational energy and discredits the pseudotensor. And what is more, integral 4-pseudovectors are meaningless in general since reference frames for their components are not determined even for coordinates which are Minkowskian at infinity.
ISSN:0202-2893
1995-0721
DOI:10.1134/S0202289314040082