English

Rigidity and the interpretation of mass with a positive cosmological constant

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2026-07-05 v1

Abstract

We provide an explicit counterexample to the rigidity properties underlying the interpretation of mass in the presence of a positive cosmological constant Λ\Lambda. Specifically, we construct a family of regular static stellar configurations satisfying the dominant and strong energy conditions, and containing no surface layers, for which the mass parameter of the outer Schwarzschild-de Sitter region can be positive, zero, or negative. The zero-mass configuration is precisely the one for which the outer vacuum region becomes exactly de Sitter, yielding a spacetime in which a de Sitter domain coexists with regular perfect-fluid matter. This contrasts sharply with the Λ=0\Lambda=0 case, where a Minkowski domain cannot coexist with perfect-fluid regions satisfying the energy conditions. These results show that the static, spherically symmetric realization of the rigidity principle associated with the positive mass theorem for Λ=0\Lambda=0 does not carry over to Λ>0\Lambda>0.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.04291,
  title  = {Rigidity and the interpretation of mass with a positive cosmological constant},
  author = {Eneko Aranguren and Raül Vera},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.04291},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

5 pages, 5 figures