A comment on the construction of the maximal globally hyperbolic Cauchy development

Under mild assumptions, we remove all traces of the axiom of choice from the construction of the maximal globally hyperbolic Cauchy development in general relativity. The construction relies on the notion of direct union manifolds, which we review. The construction given is very general: any physical theory with a suitable geometric representation (in particular all classical fields), and such that a strong notion of "local existence and uniqueness" of solutions for the corresponding initial value problem is available, is amenable to the same treatment.Comment: Version 2: 9 (+epsilon; depending on compiler) pages; updated references. Version 3: switched to revtex, 6 pages, version accepted for publicatio

Stability and instability of expanding solutions to the Lorentzian constant-positive-mean-curvature flow

We study constant mean curvature Lorentzian hypersurfaces of $\mathbb{R}^{1,d+1}$ from the point of view of its Cauchy problem. We completely classify the spherically symmetric solutions, which include among them a manifold isometric to the de Sitter space of general relativity. We show that the spherically symmetric solutions exhibit one of three (future) asymptotic behaviours: (i) finite time collapse (ii) convergence to a time-like cylinder isometric to some $\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{S}^d$ and (iii) infinite expansion to the future converging asymptotically to a time translation of the de Sitter solution. For class (iii) we examine the future stability properties of the solutions under arbitrary (not necessarily spherically symmetric) perturbations. We show that the usual notions of asymptotic stability and modulational stability cannot apply, and connect this to the presence of cosmological horizons in these class (iii) solutions. We can nevertheless show the global existence and future stability for small perturbations of class (iii) solutions under a notion of stability that naturally takes into account the presence of cosmological horizons. The proof is based on the vector field method, but requires additional geometric insight. In particular we introduce two new tools: an inverse-Gauss-map gauge to deal with the problem of cosmological horizon and a quasilinear generalisation of Brendle's Bel-Robinson tensor to obtain natural energy quantities.Comment: Version 2: 60 pages, 1 figure. Changes mostly to fix typographical errors, with the exception of Remark 1.2 and Section 9.1 which are new and which explain the extrinsic geometry of the embedding in more detail in terms of the stability result. Version 3: updated reference

A positive mass theorem for two spatial dimensions

We observe that an analogue of the Positive Mass Theorem in the time-symmetric case for three-space-time-dimensional general relativity follows trivially from the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. In this case we also have that the spatial slice is diffeomorphic to \Real^2.Comment: 3 pages, more or less trivial. Posting it because I cannot find it in the literature: comments and references to where this may have appeared before are welcome! Version 2: fixed some typos, added some remarks based on comments receive

A space-time characterization of the Kerr-Newman metric

In the present paper, the characterization of the Kerr metric found by Marc Mars is extended to the Kerr-Newman family. A simultaneous alignment of the Maxwell field, the Ernst two-form of the pseudo-stationary Killing vector field, and the Weyl curvature of the metric is shown to imply that the space-time is locally isometric to domains in the Kerr-Newman metric. The paper also presents an extension of Ionescu and Klainerman's null tetrad formalism to explicitly include Ricci curvature terms.Comment: (current version) 29 pages. Incorporated changes suggested by the anonymous referee. Resubmitted to Annales Henri Poincar

Non-existence of multiple-black-hole solutions close to Kerr-Newman

We show that a stationary asymptotically flat electro-vacuum solution of Einstein's equations that is everywhere locally "almost isometric" to a Kerr-Newman solution cannot admit more than one event horizon. Axial symmetry is not assumed. In particular this implies that the assumption of a single event horizon in Alexakis-Ionescu-Klainerman's proof of perturbative uniqueness of Kerr black holes is in fact unnecessary.Comment: Version 2: improved presentation; no changes to the result. Version 3: corrected an oversight in the historical review. Version 4: version accepted for publicatio