PhilSci Archive

On Gravitational Energy in Newtonian Theories

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

WarningThere is a more recent version of this item available.
[img]
Preview
Text
gravitational_energy.pdf - Submitted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

Download (307kB) | Preview

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.


Export/Citation: EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL
Social Networking:
Share |

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: 04 Jul 2017 20:29
Last Modified: 04 Jul 2017 20:29
Item ID: 13177
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Date: 2017
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13177

Available Versions of this Item

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item