Separable motions for self-gravitating hyperelastic matter

Abstract

In this paper, we prove the existence of separable solutions to the equations of motion for self-gravitating hyperelastic matter, under an appropriate class of constitutive assumptions on the strain-energy function. Our framework includes both global-in-time solutions which expand and also solutions which collapse to a point in finite time. Other authors have constructed expanding solutions in similar settings, but to the best of our knowledge, the collapsing solutions we construct are completely new.