A quasi-local mass in general relativity

In this talk, we define a new gauge-independent quasi-local mass and energy with respect to the Minkowski spacetime. In contrast to other quasi-local masses, this new quasi-local mass/energy has a quasi-local proof of positivity. This positivity property is for spacelike surfaces with any topology. Moreover, we show that it has desired asymptotic behaviors at null and spatial infinity of asymptotically flat spacetimes. Rigidity is also established in that vanishing energy implies that the 2-surface arises from an embedding into Minkowski space, and conversely, the mass vanishes for any such surface. This is joint work with M. Khuri and S.T. Yau.