- qc / 9 90 70 24 v 1 6 J ul 1 99 9 A gauge theoretical view of the charge concept in Einstein gravity ∗ Marc

We will discuss some analogies between internal gauge theories and gravity in order to better understand the charge concept in gravity. A dimensional analysis of gauge theories in general and a strict definition of elementary, monopole, and topological charges are applied to electromagnetism and to teleparallelism, a gauge theoretical formulation of Einstein gravity. As a result we inevitably find that the gravitational coupling constant has dimension ~/l2, the mass parameter of a particle dimension ~/l, and the Schwarzschild mass parameter dimension l (where l means length). These dimensions confirm the meaning of mass as elementary and as monopole charge of the translation group, respectively. In detail, we find that the Schwarzschild mass parameter is a quasi-electric monopole charge of the time translation whereas the NUT parameter is a quasimagnetic monopole charge of the time translation as well as a topological charge. The Kerr parameter and the electric and magnetic charges are interpreted similarly. We conclude that each elementary charge of a Casimir operator of the gauge group is the source of a (quasi-electric) monopole charge of the respective Killing vector.