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On Gravitational Energy in Newtonian Theories

Dewar, Neil and Weatherall, James Owen (2017) On Gravitational Energy in Newtonian Theories. [Preprint]

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Abstract

There are well-known problems associated with the idea of (local) gravitational energy in general relativity. We offer a new perspective on those problems by comparison with Newtonian gravitation, and particularly geometrized Newtonian gravitation (i.e., Newton-Cartan theory). We show that there is a natural candidate for the energy density of a Newtonian gravitational field. But we observe that this quantity is gauge dependent, and that it cannot be defined in the geometrized (gauge-free) theory without introducing further structure. We then address a potential response by showing that there is an analogue to the Weyl tensor in geometrized Newtonian gravitation.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Dewar, Neilneil.dewar@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Weatherall, James Owenweatherj@uci.edu0000-0003-1461-7821
Keywords: Newton-Cartan theory; gravitational energy; geometrized Newtonian gravitation; Newtonian gravitation; Newtonian Weyl tensor
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Depositing User: James Owen Weatherall
Date Deposited: 13 Feb 2018 22:35
Last Modified: 13 Feb 2018 22:35
Item ID: 14384
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Date: 2017
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14384

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