English

Equality in the spacetime positive mass theorem II

Differential Geometry 2023-02-21 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We provide a new proof of the equality case of the spacetime positive mass theorem, which states that if a complete asymptotically flat initial data set (M,g,k)(M, g, k) satisfying the dominant energy condition has null ADM energy-momentum (that is, E=P|E|=|P|), then (M,g)(M,g) must isometrically embed into Minkowski space with kk as its second fundamental form. Previous proofs either used spinor methods [Wit 81, BC96, CM06], relied on the Jang equation [HL20, Eic13], or assumed three spatial dimensions [HZ22]. In contrast, our new proof only requires knowing that EPE\ge|P| for all complete initial data sets near (g,k)(g,k) on MM satisfying the dominant energy condition.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2302.06040,
  title  = {Equality in the spacetime positive mass theorem II},
  author = {Lan-Hsuan Huang and Dan A. Lee},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.06040},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

some names changed and references updated

R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:38:16.376Z