2015/10/31 by Abhay Ashtekar, Béatrice Bonga, Aruna Kesavan · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Mathematics · #gr-qc #hep-th #math-ph #math.MP
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.116.051101
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 051101 (2016) · 5 pages, 1 Figure. Small revision in the Introduction on page 1 and Summary/Outlook on page 4 revised; some references added. To appear in PRL
arxiv created 2015/12/31 · arxiv updated 2016/02/10
There is a deep tension between the well-developed theory of gravitational waves from isolated systems and the presence of a positive cosmological constant Λ, however tiny. In particular, even the post-Newtonian quadrupole formula, derived by Einstein in 1918, has not been generalized to include a positive Λ. We first explain the principal difficulties and then show that it is possible to overcome them in the weak field limit. These results also provide concrete hints for constructing the Λ>0 generalization of the Bondi-Sachs framework for full, non-linear general relativity.