Noether charge formalism for Weyl transverse gravity

TL;DR

This paper develops the Noether charge formalism for Weyl transverse gravity, deriving laws of black hole mechanics and causal diamonds, and analyzing the role of the cosmological constant within this alternative gravitational theory.

Contribution

It introduces the Noether currents and charges for Weyl transverse gravity and applies them to derive thermodynamic laws for black holes and causal diamonds.

Findings

Derived the first law of black hole mechanics in Weyl transverse gravity.

Established the Smarr formula for specific spacetimes.

Analyzed the impact of a varying cosmological constant in this framework.

Abstract

Weyl transverse gravity is a gravitational theory that is invariant under transverse diffeomorphisms and Weyl transformations. It is characterised by having the same classical solutions as general relativity while solving some of its issues with the cosmological constant. In this work, we first find the Noether currents and charges corresponding to local symmetries of Weyl transverse gravity as well as a prescription for the symplectic form. We then employ these results to derive the first law of black hole mechanics in Weyl transverse gravity (both in vacuum and in the presence of a perfect fluid), identifying the total energy, the total angular momentum, and the Wald entropy of black holes. We further obtain the first law and Smarr formula for Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter and pure de Sitter spacetimes, discussing the contributions of the varying cosmological constant, which naturally appear in Weyl transverse gravity. Lastly, we derive the first law of causal diamonds in vacuum.