Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Scientific paper
2006-03-24
Phys.Rev. D74 (2006) 044016
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Typos corrected, minor changes to match published version
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevD.74.044016
As is well known, in order for the Einstein--Hilbert action to have a well defined variation, and therefore to be used for deriving field equation through the stationary action principle, it has to be amended by the addition of a suitable boundary term. It has recently been claimed that, if one constructs an action by adding this term to the matter action, the Einstein field equations can be derived by requiring this action to be invariant under active transformations which are normal to a null boundary. In this paper we re-examine this approach both for the case of pure gravity and in the presence of matter. We show that in the first case this procedure holds for more general actions than the Einstein-Hilbert one and trace the basis of this remarkable attribute. However, it is also pointed out the when matter is rigorously considered the approach breaks down. The reasons for that are thoroughly discussed.
Liberati Stefano
Sotiriou Thomas P.
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