Symplectic geometry of radiative modes and conserved quantities at null infinity

Abstract

The Hamiltonian description of massless spin zero- and one-fields in Minkowski space is first recast in a way that refers only to null infinity and fields thereon representing radiative modes. With this framework as a guide, the phase space of the radiative degrees of freedom of the gravitational field (in exact general relativity) is introduced. It has the structure of an infinite-dimensional affine manifold (modelled on a Fréchet space) and is equipped with a continuous, weakly non-degenerate symplectic tensor field. The action of the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs group on null infinity is shown to induce canonical transformations on this phase space. The corresponding Hamiltonians – i. e. generating functions – are computed and interpreted as fluxes of supermomentum and angular momentum carried away by gravitational waves. The discussion serves three purposes: it brings out, via symplectic methods, the universality of the interplay between symmetries and conserved quantities; it sheds new light on the issue of angular momentum of gravitational radiation; and, it suggests a new approach to the quantization of the ‘true’ degrees of freedom of the gravitational field.