A Class of Conserved Tensors in an Arbitrary Gravitational Field

Abstract

ABSTRACTFour-index tensors with all possible terms either (a) quadratic in the Riemann curvature tensor, or (b) linear in its second derivatives, with coefficients constructed from products of metric tensors, are enumerated for the case of Riemannian space-time. All linear combinations of these which have zero divergence, and which might therefore be associated with the super-energy in gravitational theory, are found by elementary methods. The only independent such combination reduces in empty space-time to the tensor previously found by Bel and Robinson.