Unique continuation for the vacuum Einstein equations

Abstract

We derive a unique continuation theorem for the vacuum Einstein equations. Our method of proof utilizes Carleman estimates (most importantly one obtained recently by Ionescu and Klainerman), but also relies strongly on certain geometric gauge constructions which make it possible to address this problem via such estimates. We indicate how our method can be used more broadly to derive unique continuation for Einstein's equations from Carleman estimates for the wave operator.