Abstract. We apply the Hawking-Hayward quasi-local energy construct to obtain in a rigorous way the turnaround radius of cosmic structures in General Relativity. A splitting of this quasi-local mass into local and cosmological parts describes the interplay between local attraction and cosmological expansion.

The Newtonian simulations describing the formation of large-scale structures do not include relativistic effects. A new approach to this problem is proposed, which consists of splitting the HawkingHayward quasi-local energy of a closed spacelike 2-surface into a "Newtonian" part due to local perturbations and a "relativistic" part due to the cosmology. It is found that the Newtonian part dominates over the relativistic one as time evolves, lending support to the validity of Newtonian simulations.PACS numbers: 98.62.Py, 98.80.Jk

The long-standing problem of whether the cosmological constant affects directly the deflection of light caused by a gravitational lens is reconsidered. We use a new approach based on the Hawking quasilocal mass of a sphere grazed by light rays and on its splitting into local and cosmological parts. Previous literature restricted to the cosmological constant is extended to any form of dark energy accelerating the universe in which the gravitational lens is embedded.Comment: 4 pages. Added some discussion and a few references, matches version accepted in Phys. Rev.

We derive a formula describing the transformation of the Hawking-Hayward quasi-local energy under a conformal rescaling of the spacetime metric. A known formula for the transformation of the Misner-Sharp-Hernandez mass is recovered as a special case.

The pseudo-Newtonian potential of Paczynski and Wiita for particles orbiting a Schwarzschild black hole is generalized to arbitrary static and spherically symmetric spacetimes, including black hole solutions of alternative theories of gravity. In addition to being more general, our prescription differs substantially from a previous one in the literature, showing that the association of a pseudo-Newtonian potential even with a simple black hole metric is not unique.