On the center of mass in general relativity

Lan-Hsuan Huang

Published 2011-01-03Version 1

The classical notion of center of mass for an isolated system in general relativity is derived from the Hamiltonian formulation and represented by a flux integral at infinity. In contrast to mass and linear momentum which are well-defined for asymptotically flat manifolds, center of mass and angular momentum seem less well-understood, mainly because they appear as the lower order terms in the expansion of the data than those which determine mass and linear momentum. This article summarizes some of the recent developments concerning center of mass and its geometric interpretation using the constant mean curvature foliation near infinity. Several equivalent notions of center of mass are also discussed.