The Hawking Energy on the Past Lightcone in Cosmology

Mar 30, 2020
19 pages
Published in:
  • Class.Quant.Grav. 37 (2020) 21, 215005
  • Published: Oct 10, 2020
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Abstract: (IOP)
This work studies the Hawking energy in a cosmological context. The past lightcone of a point in spacetime is the natural geometric structure closely linked to cosmological observations. By slicing the past lightcone into a one-parameter family of spacelike two-surfaces, the evolution of the Hawking energy down the lightcone is studied. Strong gravitational fields may generate lightcone self-intersections and wave front singularities. We show that in the presence of swallow-tail type singularities, the Hawking energy and its variation along the null generators of the lightcone remains well-defined and subsequently discuss its positivity and monotonicity.
Note:
  • matches published version
  • singularity
  • cosmological model
  • gravitation
  • space-time