The pseudo stress-energy tensor of gravitational waves is given by I want to prove that it is invariant under gauge transformation The bracket means taking average over the region of which the scale is several times that of gravitational wave's wavelength. So the terms of total divergence, e.g. , will vanish. But I have met a problem. Under gauge transformation, will produce a term . However, there is no other term of the order would ever contain and so I find it impossible to eliminate it. I have check a few textbooks GR, such as MTW (page 969-970) and Sean Carroll (page 307-310). But they just state that the pseudo stress-energy tensor is gauge invariant but give no detailed proof. And I also failed to find a paper which cover the proof. Any help or recommendation for books/papers is appreciated! Some additional information: In Padmanabhan's book Gravitation , page 422, there is an example illustrating the gauge dependence of the energy of the gravitational waves. Consider a gravitational wave of the form , where and . Show that, while this is a valid gravitational wave solution, its energy-momentum tensor vanishes. Argue that it is, however, possible to change the gauge and transform to the form when the energy-momentum tensor is nonzero and has the form . I have checked this exercise and find the demanding gauge transformation is So this example shows that is not gauge independent strictly. Of course, I know the coordinate transformation generated by of the form above is not infinitesimal. I think that some additional constraints may be needed for the derivation of gauge invariance of .
Gauge invariance of pseudo stress-energy tensor of gravitational waves
Eric Yang


