Session AC - Theory.
MIXED session, Friday morning, October 05
SWR L4, Sid W. Richardson Building
The oft-neglected issue of the causal structure in the flat spacetime approach to Einstein's theory of gravity is considered. Consistency requires that the flat metric's null cone be respected, but this does not automatically happen. We introduce a generalized eigenvector formalism to give a kinematic description of the relation between the two null cones. The gauge freedom likely can be used to restrict the configuration space such that the proper relation between the null cones obtains. New variables in which the proper relation holds automatically are introduced.