Deviations from the von Laue condition: Implications for the on-shell Lagrangian of particles and fluids

TL;DR

This paper investigates deviations from the von Laue condition in finite-mass systems, demonstrating that the on-shell Lagrangian closely approximates the trace of the energy-momentum tensor under typical conditions, with implications for particle and fluid modeling.

Contribution

It extends the von Laue condition analysis to finite systems, showing the on-shell Lagrangian's ratio to the energy-momentum trace remains near unity in realistic scenarios.

Findings

Deviations from the von Laue condition are bounded by the outer energy fraction.

The ratio of the on-shell Lagrangian to the energy-momentum trace is close to one in typical conditions.

Ideal gas Lagrangian approximates the true on-shell Lagrangian well, even with interactions.

Abstract

According to the von Laue condition, the volume integral of the proper pressure inside isolated particles with a fixed structure and finite mass vanishes in the Minkowski limit of general relativity. In this work, we consider a simple illustrative example: nonstandard static global monopoles with finite energy, for which the von Laue condition is satisfied when the proper pressure is integrated over the whole space. We demonstrate, however, that the absolute value of this integral, when calculated up to a finite distance from the center of the global monopole, generally deviates from zero by no more than the energy located outside the specified volume (under the assumption of the dominant energy condition). Furthermore, we find that the maximum deviation from unity of the ratio between the volume averages of the on-shell Lagrangian and the trace of the energy-momentum tensor cannot exceed three times the outer energy fraction. Extending these results to real particles, we demonstrate that these constraints generally hold for finite-mass systems with fixed structure, including stable atomic nuclei, provided the dominant energy condition is satisfied. Specifically, we show that, except in extremely dense environments with energy densities comparable to that of the particles themselves, the volume average of the aforementioned ratio must be extremely close to unity. Finally, we discuss the broader implications of our findings for the form of the on-shell Lagrangian of real fluids, which is often a crucial element for accurately modeling the dynamics of the gravity and matter, especially in scenarios involving nonminimal couplings to other matter fields or gravity. We find that, in general, the ideal gas on-shell Lagrangian provides an accurate approximation of the true on-shell Lagrangian, even for nonideal gases with significant interparticle interactions.