Blowup solutions of Jang's equation near a spacetime singularity

Abstract

We study Jang's equation on a one-parameter family of asymptotically flat, spherically symmetric Cauchy hypersurfaces in the maximally extended Schwarzschild spacetime. The hypersurfaces contain apparent horizons and are parametrized by their proximity to the singularity at $r = 0$. We show that on those hypersurfaces sufficiently close to the singularity, every radial solution to Jang's equation blows up. The proof depends only on the geometry in an arbitrarily small neighborhood of the singularity, suggesting that Jang's equation is in fact detecting the singularity. We comment on possible applications to the weak cosmic censorship conjecture.