The light cone at infinity

Abstract

A recent refinement of Penrose's conformal framework for asymptotically flat space-times is summarized. The key idea concerns advanced and retarded conformal factors, which allow a rigid description of infinity as a locally metric light cone. In the new framework, the Bondi-Sachs energy-flux integrals of ingoing and outgoing gravitational radiation decay at spatial infinity such that the total radiated energy is finite, and the Bondi-Sachs energy-momentum has a unique limit at spatial infinity, coinciding with the uniquely rendered ADM energy-momentum.