Forward Construction of Vacuum Initial Data with Borderline Decay

Abstract

We make use of the free data formalism developed in \cite{CK25} to construct solutions of the Einstein vacuum constraint equations by integrating in the forward direction. This, together with a new gauge condition based on effective uniformization, allows us to construct general solutions with limited decay at spacelike infinity. In particular, we construct solutions with minimal and even borderline decay, as considered in \cite{Shen23}, \cite{Shen24} in connection with the stability of the Minkowski space. In a forthcoming paper, we make use of the techniques we develop here to identify and construct a general class of short-pulse Cauchy data that lead to the formation of trapped surfaces, extending the well-known result of \cite{LiYu}.