The initial boundary value problem in General Relativity: the umbilic case

TL;DR

This paper proves local well-posedness for the initial boundary value problem in general relativity with an umbilic boundary condition, expanding understanding of boundary conditions that ensure well-posedness and geometric uniqueness.

Contribution

It provides a simplified proof using wave coordinates that the umbilic boundary condition guarantees well-posedness and geometric uniqueness in general relativity.

Findings

Umbilic boundary condition ensures local well-posedness.

The momentum constraint holds for umbilic boundaries.

Umbilic condition allows greater freedom in boundary conditions.

Abstract

We give a short proof of local well-posedness for the initial boundary value problem in general relativity with sole boundary condition the requirement that the boundary is umbilic. This includes as a special case the totally geodesic boundary condition that we had previously addressed in [8]. The proof is based on wave coordinates and the key observation that the momentum constraint is always valid for umbilic boundaries. This allows for a greater freedom in the choice of boundary conditions, since imposing the umbilic condition also provides Neumann boundary conditions for three of the four wave coordinates conditions. Moreover, the umbilic condition, being geometric, implies that geometric uniqueness in the sense of Friedrich holds in this specific case.