The problem of a self-gravitating scalar field (Q1086427)

The author studies the global initial value problem for Einstein's equations in the spherically symmetric case with a massless scalar field. The problem is reduced to a single nonlinear equation. The local and global, in retarded time, existence of classical solutions is proved for sufficiently small initial data given on a future light cone. The proof is constructive. A sequence \(\{h_ n\}\) is constructed and it is shown to be conditionally compact, by the Ascoli-Arzela lemma. Next, the sequence is shown to be contractive, which gives the uniqueness of a convergent subsequence of \(\{h_ n\}\). The limit of the subsequence solves the nonlinear evolution equations.