Gravitational Degrees of Freedom and the Initial-Value Problem
- 28 June 1971
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 26 (26) , 1656-1658
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.26.1656
Abstract
It is shown that for every spacelike three-geometry there exists a symmetric tensor that is (1) defined locally using only the three-metric and its derivatives, (2) conformally invariant, (3) traceless, and (4) covariantly divergence free ("transverse"). As a result, the arbitrarily specifiable (unconstrained) initial-value data in the Einstein initial-value problem for gravity can be completely characterized by a pair of symmetric, transverse, traceless tensors.Keywords
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