Physical decomposition of the gauge and gravitational fields

Abstract

Physical decomposition of the non-Abelian gauge field has recently solved the two-decade-lasting problem of a meaningful gluon spin. Here we extend this approach to gravity and attack the century-lasting problem of a meaningful gravitational energy. The metric is unambiguously separated into a pure geometric term which contributes null curvature tensor, and a physical term which represents the true gravitational effect and always vanishes in a flat space-time. By this decomposition the conventional pseudo-tensors of the gravitational stress-energy are easily rescued to produce definite physical result. Our decomposition applies to any symmetric tensor, and has interesting relation to the transverse-traceless (TT) decomposition discussed by Arnowitt, Deser and Misner, and by York.