Is ADM Energy Equivalent to Komar Mass in All Spacetimes?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the relationship between ADM energy and Komar mass in various spacetimes, particularly focusing on their definitions and equivalences in the context of general relativity. It includes theoretical considerations and references to specific spacetime models, such as Schwarzschild spacetime.

Discussion Character

  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant proposes that in Schwarzschild spacetime, the ADM energy is equivalent to the Schwarzschild mass parameter.
  • Another participant confirms that the equivalence of ADM energy and Komar mass holds true under specific conditions related to the hypersurface being orthogonal to the stationary killing field at spatial infinity.
  • A third participant references a paper suggesting that the Komar integral is equivalent to the ADM mass, questioning if this is due to the definition of the Komar integral in stationary spacetimes where ADM momentum is zero.
  • Further discussion highlights that the ADM 4-momentum is parallel to the time-like killing vector at spatial infinity, with a proportionality factor involving the Komar mass, suggesting that the rest frames defined by both quantities align.
  • One participant expresses uncertainty about the implications of the twist of the time-like killing field and its relation to the proof of the equivalence between ADM energy and Komar mass.
  • There is a suggestion that while the ADM 3-momentum vanishes in stationary spacetimes, this does not automatically imply that ADM energy equals Komar energy, indicating a non-trivial relationship.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the equivalence of ADM energy and Komar mass under certain conditions, but there are nuances and uncertainties regarding the implications and proofs of this relationship. The discussion remains unresolved on some aspects, particularly regarding the physical intuition behind the results.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the dependence on specific definitions of ADM energy and Komar mass, as well as the conditions under which their equivalence is asserted. The discussion also references specific mathematical proofs and results that may not be fully detailed in the thread.

atyy
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Can I check whether these are right? Here let's define the ADM mass as length of the ADM energy-momentum vector.

In the Schwarzschild spacetime
ADM energy = Schwarzschild mass parameter

In a spacetime in which the ADM energy and the Komar mass are both defined
ADM energy = Komar mass
 
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The second statement is indeed true so as long as you take the space-like hypersurface associated with the ADM energy integral to be orthogonal to the stationary killing field at spatial infinity. The first statement is a consequence of the second since is easy to show that the Komar integral in Schwarzschild space-time yields the Schwarzschild mass parameter. The proof is given in this paper: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jmp/20/5/10.1063/1.524151
 
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The Ashtekar and Magnon-Asktekar paper says in Lemma 2.3 that the Komar integral (presumably that is the same thing as the Komar mass?) is the ADM mass (length of the ADM 4-vector). Presumably this is because the Komar integral is defined in stationary spacetimes, and the ADM momentum is zero in a stationary spacetime?
 
Well you can see from Theorem 2 that the ADM 4-momentum is parallel to the time-like killing vector at spatial infinity with the proportionality factor containing the Komar mass itself, so indeed the ADM 3-momentum vanishes. What this means is that the rest frame defined by the ADM 4-momentum agrees with the rest frame defined by the time-like killing vector at spatial infinity, a result which is by no means obvious to me from the definition of the ADM 4-momentum as evaluated in a stationary space-time; in particular, the fact that the twist ##\omega_a = \epsilon_{abcd}\xi^b \nabla^c \xi^d## of the time-like killing field ##\xi^a## satisfies ##\lim_{\rightarrow i^0}\hat{\omega}_a = 0##, which was a crucial part of the proof, is not obvious to me just from physical intuition (the hat indicates the twist associated with ##\hat{\nabla}_a##, ##\hat{\epsilon}_{abcd}##, and ##\hat{\xi^a}##). Indeed this result (that is, including the part about the proportionality factor containing the Komar mass) is only obtained in retrospect after the proof of Lemma 2.3.

Of course even before the proof of Lemma 2.3, one could argue through physical intuition that for a stationary space-time, the ADM 3-momentum must clearly vanish but just because the ADM 3-momentum vanishes doesn't mean a priori that the ADM energy must equal the Komar energy; the conclusion is non-trivial as Lemma 2.3 shows.
 
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