Local foliations and optimal regularity of Einstein spacetimes (Q1029484)

The authors continue the investigation of the local geometry of Einstein space-times. They consider a pointed Lorentzian manifold \((M,g,p,T_p)\), that is, a time oriented Lorentzian manifold supplemented with a point \(p\in M\) and a future oriented time-like vector \(T_p\) at that point. The pair \((p,T_p)\) is called a local observer. At first, the authors construct a constant mean curvature (CMC) foliation by space-like hypersurfaces, which is locally defined near the observer and satisfies quantitative bounds. Next, assuming that \(M\) is pointed Einstein vacuum space-time they construct spatially harmonic coordinates on each space-like CMC slice and prove that the metric coefficients have optimal regularity. The authors assert that their local regularity theory allows also to control the global geometry of the space-time.