Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mathematics, physics A quantity that transforms like a tensor under a proper rotation but gains an additional change of sign under an improper rotation.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

pseudo- +‎ tensor

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Examples

  • That is the lesson of the nonuniqueness of [the gravitational stress-energy pseudotensor].

    A Dark, Misleading Force Sean 2007

  • However, you can still define a “gravitational stress-energy pseudotensor”, which although meaningless at a single point nonetheless gives sensible results when integrated, yielding the total energy and momentum in a region surrounded by flat spacetime, and the fluxes of energy and momentum in or out of such a region.

    A Dark, Misleading Force Sean 2007

  • In GR, you can’t do that, but you can, for example, integrate this pseudotensor over several wavelengths of a gravitational wave to get a meaningful result for the energy and momentum that it’s carrying — a result that will tell you how much energy the wave will deposit in various kinds of gravity wave detectors.

    A Dark, Misleading Force Sean 2007

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