Fantastic Beasts and where (not) to find them: Local gravitational energy and energy conservation in general relativity

This paper critically examines energy momentum conservation and local (differential) notions of gravitational energy in General Relativity (GR). On the one hand, I argue that energy-momentum of matter is indeed locally (differentially) conserved: Physical matter energy-momentum 4-currents possess no genuine sinks/sources. On the other hand, global (integral) energy-momentum conservation is contingent on spacetime symmetries. Local gravitational energy-momentum is found to be a supererogatory notion. Various explicit proposals for local gravitational energy-momentum are investigated and found wanting. Besides pseudotensors, the proposals considered include those of Lorentz and Levi-Civita, Pitts and Baker. It is concluded that the ontological commitment we ought to have towards gravitational energy in GR mimics the natural anti-realism/eliminativism towards apparent forces in Newtonian Mechanics. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.