Conservation laws and scattering for de Sitter classical particles

Abstract

Starting from an intrinsic geometric characterization of de Sitter timelike and lightlike geodesics we give a new description of the conserved quantities associated with classical free particles on the de Sitter manifold. These quantities allow for a natural discussion of classical pointlike scattering and decay processes. We also provide an intrinsic definition of energy of a classical de Sitter particle and discuss its different expressions in various local coordinate systems and their relations with earlier definitions found in the literature.

25 pages, 1 figure