Asymptotic symmetries and charges at spatial infinity in general relativity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the asymptotic symmetries and charges at spatial infinity in 4D asymptotically-flat spacetimes using a covariant formalism, aiming to relate these to null infinity charges and support Strominger's conjecture.

Contribution

It derives new formulae for asymptotic charges at spatial infinity without fixing the conformal factor, facilitating the comparison with null infinity charges.

Findings

Derived covariant charge formulas for supertranslations and Lorentz symmetries.

No restrictions on conformal factor, broadening applicability.

Supports the matching of spatial and null infinity charges.

Abstract

We analyze the asymptotic symmetries and their associated charges at spatial infinity in $4$-dimensional asymptotically-flat spacetimes. We use the covariant formalism of Ashtekar and Hansen where the asymptotic fields and symmetries live on the $3$-manifold of spatial directions at spatial infinity, represented by a timelike unit-hyperboloid (or de Sitter space). Using the covariant phase space formalism, we derive formulae for the charges corresponding to asymptotic supertranslations and Lorentz symmetries at spatial infinity. With the motivation of, eventually, proving that these charges match with those defined on null infinity -- as has been conjectured by Strominger -- we do not impose any restrictions on the choice of conformal factor in contrast to previous work on this problem. Since we work with a general conformal factor we expect that our charge expressions will be more suitable to prove the matching of the Lorentz charges at spatial infinity to those defined on null infinity, as has been recently shown for the supertranslation charges.