Abstract. The recent introduction of a boundary stress tensor for asymptotically flat spacetimes enabled a new construction of energy, momentum and Lorentz charges. These charges are known to generate the asymptotic symmetries of the theory, but their explicit formulae are not identical to previous constructions in the literature. This paper corrects an earlier comparison with other approaches, including terms in the definition of the stress tensor charges that were previously overlooked. We show that these terms either vanish identically (for d > 4) or take a form that does not contribute to the conserved charges (for d = 4). This verifies the earlier claim that boundary stress tensor methods for asymptotically flat spacetimes yield the same conserved charges as other approaches. We also derive some additional connections between the boundary stress tensor and the electric part of the Weyl tensor.

PACS numbers: 04.20.Cv, 04.20.Fy, 04.20.Ha, 04.50.+h

Print publication: Issue 22 (21 November 2008)
Received 6 June 2008, in final form 4 September 2008
Published 3 November 2008