High-frequency limits and null dust shell solutions in general relativity

Consider the characteristic initial value problem for the Einstein vacuum equations without any symmetry assumptions. Impose a sequence of data on two intersecting null hypersurfaces, each of which is foliated by spacelike $2$-spheres. Assume that the sequence of data is such that the derivatives of the metrics along null directions are only uniformly bounded in $L^2$ but the derivatives of the metrics along the directions tangential to the $2$-spheres obey higher regularity bounds uniformly. By the results in [J. Luk and I. Rodnianski, Nonlinear interaction of impulsive gravitational waves for the vacuum Einstein equations, Camb. J. Math. 5(4), 2017], it follows that the sequence of characteristic initial value problems gives rise to a sequence of vacuum spacetimes $(\mathcal M, g_n)$ in a fixed double-null domain $\mathcal M$. Since the existence theorem requires only very low regularity, the sequence of solutions may exhibit both oscillations and concentrations, and the limit need not be vacuum. We prove nonetheless that, after passing to a subsequence, the metrics converge in $C^0$ and weakly in $W^{1,2}$ to a solution of the Einstein-null dust system with two families of (potentially measure-valued) null dust. We show moreover that all sufficiently regular solutions to the Einstein-null dust system (with potentially measure-valued null dust) adapted to a double null coordinate system arise locally as weak limits of solutions to the Einstein vacuum system in the manner described above. As a consequence, we also give the first general local existence and uniqueness result for solutions to the Einstein-null dust system for which the null dusts are only measures. This in particular includes as a special case solutions featuring propagating and interacting shells of null dust.