Solving the constraint equation for general free data

We revisit the problem of solving the Einstein constraint equations in vacuum by a new method, which allows us to prescribe four scalar quantities, representing the full dynamical degrees of freedom of the constraint system. We show that once appropriate gauge conditions have been chosen and four scalars freely specified (modulo $\ell\leq 1$ modes), we can rewrite the constraint equations as a well-posed system of coupled transport and elliptic equations on $2$-spheres, which we solve by an iteration procedure. Our method provides a large class of exterior solutions of the constraint equations that can be matched to given interior solutions, according to the existing gluing techniques. As such, it can be applied to provide a large class of initial Cauchy data sets evolving to black holes, generalizing the well-known result of the formation of trapped surfaces due to Li and Yu. Though in our main theorem, we only specify conditions consistent with $g-g_{Schw}=O(r^{-1-\delta})$, $k=O(r^{-2-\delta})$, the method is flexible enough to be applied in many other situations. It can, in particular, be easily adapted to construct arbitrarily fast decaying data. We expect, moreover, that our method can also be applied to construct data with slower decay, such as that used by Shen. In fact, an important motivation for developing our method is to show that the result of Shen is sharp, i.e., construct small, smooth initial data sets which violate Shen's decay conditions, and for which the stability of the Minkowski space result is wrong.