Quasilocal conservation laws in cosmology: a first look

Abstract: Quasilocal definitions of stress-energy-momentum---that is, in the form of boundary densities (in lieu of local volume densities)---have proven generally very useful in formulating and applying conservation laws in general relativity. In this essay, we take a first basic look into applying these to cosmology, specifically using the Brown-York quasilocal stress-energy-momentum tensor for matter and gravity combined. We compute this tensor and present some simple results for a flat FLRW spacetime with a perfect fluid matter source.