We give a definition of mass for conformally compactifiable initial data sets. The asymptotic conditions are compatible with existence of gravitational radiation, and the compactifications are allowed to be polyhomogeneous. We show that the resulting mass is a geometric invariant, and we prove positivity thereof in the case of a spherical conformal infinity. When R(g) -or, equivalently, tr g K -tends to a negative constant to order one at infinity, the definition is expressed purely in terms of three-dimensional or two-dimensional objects.e-print archive: http://lanl.arXiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0307109

It seems to be expected that a horizon of a quasi-local type, such as a Killing or an isolated horizon, by analogy with a globally defined event horizon, should be unique in some open neighbourhood in the spacetime, provided the vacuum Einstein or the Einstein-Maxwell equations are satisfied. The aim of our paper is to verify whether that intuition is correct. If one can extend a so-called Kundt metric, in such a way that its null, shear-free surfaces have spherical spacetime sections, the resulting spacetime is foliated by socalled non-expanding horizons. The obstacle is Kundt's constraint induced at the surfaces by the Einstein or the Einstein-Maxwell equations, and the requirement that a solution be globally defined on the sphere. We derived a transformation (reflection) that creates a solution to Kundt's constraint out of data defining an extremal isolated horizon. Using that transformation, we derived a class of exact solutions to the Einstein or Einstein-Maxwell equations of very special properties. Each spacetime we construct is foliated by a family of the Killing horizons. Moreover, it admits another, transversal Killing horizon. The intrinsic and extrinsic geometries of the transversal Killing horizon coincide with the one defined on the event horizon of the extremal Kerr-Newman solution. However, the Killing horizon in our example admits yet another Killing vector tangent to and null at it. The geometries of the leaves are given by the reflection.

It is shown that the axial and polar perturbations of the spherically symmetric black hole can be described in a gauge-invariant way. The reduced phase space describing gravitational waves outside of the horizon is described by the gauge-invariant quantities. Both degrees of freedom fulfill generalized scalar wave equation. For the axial degree of freedom the radial part of the equation corresponds to the Regge-Wheeler result [1] and for the polar one we get Zerilli result [2], see also [4], [5] for both. An important ingredient of the analysis is the concept of quasilocality which does duty for the separation of the angular variables in the usual approach. Moreover, there is no need to represent perturbations by normal modes (with time dependence exp(−ikt)), we have fields in spacetime and the Cauchy problem for them is well defined outside of the horizon. The reduced symplectic structure explains the origin of the axial and polar invariants. It allows to introduce an energy and angular momentum for the gravitational waves which is invariant with respect to the gauge transformations. Both generators represent quadratic approximation of the ADM nonlinear formulae in terms of the perturbations of the Schwarzschild metric. We also discuss the boundary-initial value problem for the linearized Einstein equations on a Schwarzschild background outside of the horizon. *

A twenty-dimensional space of charged solutions of spin-2 equations is proposed. The relation with extended (via dilatation) Poincaré group is analyzed. Locally, each solution of the theory may be described in terms of a potential, which can be interpreted as a metric tensor satisfying linearized Einstein equations. Globally, the non-singular metric tensor exists if and only if 10 among the above 20 charges do vanish. The situation is analogous to that in classical electrodynamics, where vanishing of magnetic monopole implies the global existence of the electro-magnetic potentials. The notion of asymptotic conformal Yano-Killing tensor is defined and used as a basic concept to introduce an inertial frame in General Relativity via asymptotic conditions at spatial infinity. The introduced class of asymptotically flat solutions is free of supertranslation ambiguities.