Null hypersurfaces in Kerr-(A)dS spacetimes

Abstract

For many purposes, a three-dimensional foliation of spacetime is more advantageous to understanding its light cone structure. We derive the equations describing such foliations for the Kerr geometry with non-zero cosmological constant, and show that they reduce to null hypersurfaces in vacuum (anti-)de Sitter spacetime in the limit of zero mass. Furthermore, we find that these null hypersurfaces are free of caustics everywhere for $r>0$. Our construction has applications in numerical studies of rotating black holes, and in defining Kruskal coordinates for rotating black holes with non-zero cosmological constant.