Do gravitational waves carry energy-momentum? A reappraisal

TL;DR

This paper reexamines whether gravitational waves carry energy-momentum, reaffirming that real gravitational waves with non-zero Riemann tensor do carry energy-momentum based on previous tensor-based proofs.

Contribution

It provides an updated summary and reappraisal of earlier proofs demonstrating that genuine gravitational waves carry energy-momentum, using superenergy tensors and averaged energy-momentum tensors.

Findings

Real gravitational waves with non-zero Riemann tensor carry energy-momentum

Previous tensor-based proofs confirm energy-momentum transfer by gravitational waves

Updated summary consolidates past results on gravitational wave energy-momentum

Abstract

After direct detection gravitational radiation in 2015 many authors are publishing remakes of their old articles about this radiation. I decided to follow this line in my Lecture delivered at the Conference "Varcosmofun'16" (12-17 September 2016, Szczecin, Poland, EU). Namely, I have presented at this Conference an updated summary of my past articles on gravitational radiation. As a base for my presentation I have used mainly the article published in 2002 in Annalen der Physik \cite{Gar3} and the articles \cite{Gar4}. In these past articles I have showed that the real gravitational waves which possess a non-vanishing Riemann tensor always carry energy-momentum (and also angular momentum). Our proof have used canonical superenergy and supermomentum tensor for gravitational field in former articles and the averaged relative energy-momentum tensor in latter. In this article we confine to the energy-momentum only.