The gravitational energy-momentum pseudo-tensor of conformally invariant theories of gravity

TL;DR

This paper develops a pseudo-tensor for gravitational energy-momentum in conformally invariant gravity theories, linearizes it, and computes the energy and momentum of gravitational waves in these theories.

Contribution

It introduces a new pseudo-tensor for conformally invariant gravity theories and applies it to analyze gravitational wave energy and momentum.

Findings

Derived the pseudo-tensor for fourth-order conformally invariant gravity

Linearized the pseudo-tensor and computed wave energy-momentum

Quantified energy and momentum carried by gravitational waves in these theories

Abstract

We construct the gravitational energy-momentum pseudo-tensor of up to fourth-order conformally invariant theories of gravity. Then we linearize the pseudo-tensor and use its average over a macroscopic region to find the energy and momentum carried by the plane gravitational waves of the three main conformally invariant theories of gravity.