General hypersurfaces of any causal character can be studied abstractly using the hypersurface data formalism. In the null case, we write down all tangential components of the ambient Ricci tensor in terms of the abstract data. Using this formalism, we formulate and solve in a completely abstract way the characteristic Cauchy problem of the Einstein vacuum field equations. The initial data is detached from any spacetime notion, and it is fully diffeomorphism and gauge covariant. The results of this paper put the characteristic problem on a similar footing as the standard Cauchy problem in General Relativity.
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.
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.
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