Constraint equations for 3 + 1 vacuum Einstein equations with a translational space-like Killing field in the asymptotically flat case

Abstract

We solve the constraint equations for a vacuum space-time with a translational space-like Killing field satisfying the vacuum Einstein equations. Vacuum Einstein equations with a translational space-like Killing field have been studied by Choquet-Bruhat and Moncrief in the compact case, and by Ashtekar, Bicak and Schmidt in the case where an additional spherical symmetry is added. In this paper we consider the asymptotically flat case. This corresponds to solving a nonlinear elliptic system on R2. The main difficulty in that case is due to the delicate inversion of the Laplacian on R2.