Metric reconstruction in a Bondi-like gauge

Abstract

Metric perturbations obtained from a Hertz potential in an ingoing radiation gauge (IRG) generically grow in an outgoing coordinate $r$ at future null infinity, and are therefore not asymptotically flat in the Bondi sense. Hollands and Toomani showed that this growth can be removed, within the Green--Hollands--Zimmerman (GHZ) framework, by an IRG-compatible ``residual'' gauge transformation together with a carefully chosen choice of the undetermined integration ``constants'' of the Hertz potential. In this work we turn that proof into a practical algorithm. We show that this entire completion is generated by a single ``Held Master Scalar'' (HMS), which can be thought of as a function on future null infinity. The HMS is obtained from the leading asymptotic piece of the $0$-Weyl scalar through a Teukolsky--Starobinsky inversion. We give explicit formulas for the four integration constants of the Hertz potential associated with the $0$-Weyl scalar, and for the residual gauge vector in terms of the HMS, thereby bringing the metric perturbation into a Bondi-like gauge. In Schwarzschild the entire construction is diagonal in $(\ell, m)$-modes and every completion field is available in closed form; in Kerr the construction is tri-diagonal. We have numerically implemented the full scheme in $(\ell,m)$ and in $m$-modes, including the corrector piece of the GHZ framework. We illustrate our scheme numerically for a point-particle on a circular orbit in a puncture scheme in Schwarzschild and in Kerr, by demonstrating the Bondi-like fall-off. We also find agreement with the known Detweiler redshift computations in Schwarzschild and Kerr. Our method directly gives the Bondi news, mass-, and angular momentum aspects, for which we give exemplary results in Kerr.