corner
corner

Phys. Rev. D 75, 084026 (2007) [7 pages]

Self-renormalization of the classical quasilocal energy

Download: PDF (160 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Andrew P. Lundgren*
Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

Bjoern S. Schmekel
Theoretical Astrophysics Center, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

James W. York, Jr.
Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

Received 21 February 2007; published 16 April 2007

Pointlike objects cause many of the divergences that afflict physical theories. For instance, the gravitational binding energy of a point particle in Newtonian mechanics is infinite. In general relativity, the analog of a point particle is a black hole and the notion of binding energy must be replaced by quasilocal energy (QLE). The QLE derived by York, and elaborated by Brown and York, is finite outside the horizon but it was not considered how to evaluate it inside the horizon. We present a prescription for finding the QLE inside a horizon, and show that it is finite at the singularity for a variety of types of black holes. The energy is typically concentrated just inside the horizon, not at the central singularity.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.75.084026
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.75.084026
PACS:
04.20.Cv, 04.20.Fy, 04.70.Bw

*Electronic address: apl27@cornell.edu

Electronic address: schmekel@berkeley.edu

Electronic address: york@astro.cornell.edu