Shear-free Null Quasi-Spherical Spacetimes

The residual gauge freedom within the null quasi-spherical coordinate condition is studied, for spacetimes admitting an expanding, shear-free null foliation. The freedom consists of a boost and rotation at each coordinate sphere, corresponding to a specification of inertial frame at each sphere. Explicit formulae involving arbitrary functions of two variables are obtained for the accelerated Minkowski, Schwarzschild, and Robinson-Trautman spacetimes. These examples will be useful as test metrics in numerical relativity.Comment: 20 pages, revte

On a Localized Riemannian Penrose Inequality

Consider a compact, orientable, three dimensional Riemannian manifold with boundary with nonnegative scalar curvature. Suppose its boundary is the disjoint union of two pieces: the horizon boundary and the outer boundary, where the horizon boundary consists of the unique closed minimal surfaces in the manifold and the outer boundary is metrically a round sphere. We obtain an inequality relating the area of the horizon boundary to the area and the total mean curvature of the outer boundary. Such a manifold may be thought as a region, surrounding the outermost apparent horizons of black holes, in a time-symmetric slice of a space-time in the context of general relativity. The inequality we establish has close ties with the Riemannian Penrose Inequality, proved by Huisken and Ilmanen, and by Bray.Comment: 16 page

Initial boundary value problems for Einstein's field equations and geometric uniqueness

While there exist now formulations of initial boundary value problems for Einstein's field equations which are well posed and preserve constraints and gauge conditions, the question of geometric uniqueness remains unresolved. For two different approaches we discuss how this difficulty arises under general assumptions. So far it is not known whether it can be overcome without imposing conditions on the geometry of the boundary. We point out a natural and important class of initial boundary value problems which may offer possibilities to arrive at a fully covariant formulation.Comment: 19 page

Einstein equations in the null quasi-spherical gauge

The structure of the full Einstein equations in a coordinate gauge based on expanding null hypersurfaces foliated by metric 2-spheres is explored. The simple form of the resulting equations has many applications -- in the present paper we describe the structure of timelike boundary conditions; the matching problem across null hypersurfaces; and the propagation of gravitational shocks.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX (revtex, amssymb), revision 18 pages, contains expanded discussion and explanations, updated references, to appear in CQ

Static solutions from the point of view of comparison geometry

We analyze (the harmonic map representation of) static solutions of the Einstein Equations in dimension three from the point of view of comparison geometry. We find simple monotonic quantities capturing sharply the influence of the Lapse function on the focussing of geodesics. This allows, in particular, a sharp estimation of the Laplacian of the distance function to a given (hyper)-surface. We apply the technique to asymptotically flat solutions with regular and connected horizons and, after a detailed analysis of the distance function to the horizon, we recover the Penrose inequality and the uniqueness of the Schwarzschild solution. The proof of this last result does not require proving conformal flatness at any intermediate step.Comment: 41 page

On the Bartnik extension problem for the static vacuum Einstein equations

We develop a framework for understanding the existence of asymptotically flat solutions to the static vacuum Einstein equations with prescribed boundary data consisting of the induced metric and mean curvature on a 2-sphere. A partial existence result is obtained, giving a partial resolution of a conjecture of Bartnik on such static vacuum extensions. The existence and uniqueness of such extensions is closely related to Bartnik's definition of quasi-local mass.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure. Minor revision of v2. Final version, to appear in Class. Quantum Gravit

Gluing Initial Data Sets for General Relativity

We establish an optimal gluing construction for general relativistic initial data sets. The construction is optimal in two distinct ways. First, it applies to generic initial data sets and the required (generically satisfied) hypotheses are geometrically and physically natural. Secondly, the construction is completely local in the sense that the initial data is left unaltered on the complement of arbitrarily small neighborhoods of the points about which the gluing takes place. Using this construction we establish the existence of cosmological, maximal globally hyperbolic, vacuum space-times with no constant mean curvature spacelike Cauchy surfaces.Comment: Final published version - PRL, 4 page

Extra-Large Remnant Recoil Velocities and Spins from Near-Extremal-Bowen-York-Spin Black-Hole Binaries

We evolve equal-mass, equal-spin black-hole binaries with specific spins of a/mH 0.925, the highest spins simulated thus far and nearly the largest possible for Bowen-York black holes, in a set of configurations with the spins counter-aligned and pointing in the orbital plane, which maximizes the recoil velocities of the merger remnant, as well as a configuration where the two spins point in the same direction as the orbital angular momentum, which maximizes the orbital hang-up effect and remnant spin. The coordinate radii of the individual apparent horizons in these cases are very small and the simulations require very high central resolutions (h ~ M/320). We find that these highly spinning holes reach a maximum recoil velocity of ~3300 km/s (the largest simulated so far) and, for the hangup configuration, a remnant spin of a/mH 0.922. These results are consistent with our previous predictions for the maximum recoil velocity of ~4000 km/s and remnant spin; the latter reinforcing the prediction that cosmic censorship is not violated by merging highly-spinning black-hole binaries. We also numerically solve the initial data for, and evolve, a single maximal-Bowen-York-spin black hole, and confirm that the 3-metric has an O(1/r^2) singularity at the puncture, rather than the usual O(1/r^4) singularity seen for non-maximal spins.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures. To appear in PR

Trapped Surfaces in Vacuum Spacetimes

An earlier construction by the authors of sequences of globally regular, asymptotically flat initial data for the Einstein vacuum equations containing trapped surfaces for large values of the parameter is extended, from the time symmetric case considered previously, to the case of maximal slices. The resulting theorem shows rigorously that there exists a large class of initial configurations for non-time symmetric pure gravitational waves satisfying the assumptions of the Penrose singularity theorem and so must have a singularity to the future.Comment: 14 page