On the canonical energy of weak gravitational fields with a cosmological constant $$\varLambda \in \mathbb {R}$$ Λ ∈ R

Abstract

Abstract We analyse the canonical energy of vacuum linearised gravitational fields on light cones on a de Sitter, Minkowski, and Anti de Sitter backgrounds in Bondi gauge. We derive the associated asymptotic symmetries. When $$\varLambda >0$$ Λ > 0 the energy diverges, but a renormalised formula with well defined flux is obtained. We show that the renormalised energy in the asymptotically off-diagonal gauge coincides with the quadratisation of the generalisation of the Trautman–Bondi mass proposed in Chruściel and Ifsits (Phys Rev D 93:124075, arXiv:1603.07018 [gr-qc], 2016).