Covariant definition of Double Null Data and geometric uniqueness of the characteristic initial value problem

Abstract

The characteristic Cauchy problem of the Einstein field equations has been recently addressed from a completely abstract viewpoint by means of hypersurface data and, in particular, via the notion of double null data. However, this definition was given in a partially gauge-fixed form. In this paper we generalize the notion of double null data in a fully diffeomorphism and gauge covariant way, and show that the definition is complete by proving that no extra conditions are needed to embed the double null data in some spacetime. The second aim of the paper is to show that the characteristic Cauchy problem satisfies a geometric uniqueness property. Specifically, we introduce a natural notion of isometry at the abstract level such that two double null data that are isometric in this sense give rise to isometric spacetimes.

36 pages, 1 figure

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Renormalization of conformal infinity as a stretched horizon
• Transverse expansion of the metric at null hypersurfaces I. Uniqueness and application to Killing horizons
• Transverse expansion of the metric at null hypersurfaces II. Existence results and application to Killing horizons
• Gluing variations
• Unique Carrollian manifolds emerging from Einstein spacetimes
• Killing and homothetic initial data for general hypersurfaces