Non-existence of time-periodic vacuum space-times (Q1700312)

In this article the authors prove the non-existence of smooth time-periodic asymptotically flat solutions of the vacuum Einstein equation in \(3+1\) dimensions. Various solutions of Einstein's gravitational equation containing closed time-like curves (CTC's) have regularly appeared in the literature since the born of general relativity. Probably the most well-known among them is ``Gödel's rotating universe'' from 1949 which is a \textit{particular} cosmological solution however already as early as \textit{A. Einstein} et al. [Ann. Math. (2) 39, 65--100 (1938; Zbl 0018.28103)] found time-periodic approximative solutions of the two-body problem to first post-Newton order in \textit{generic} (vacuum) spacetimes. Because of their strange physical implications it is an important question whether or not these solutions are realistic, typical, etc. from a physical viewpoint as well, or merely represent an artifact of the mathematical structure of the Einstein equation. A way to see this is to investigate whether or not spacetimes containing CTC's can appear as solutions of the Einstein equation (or the Einstein constraint equations) under physically realistic assumptions, like asymptotical flatness, vanishing energy-momentum tensor of matter, etc. The authors' main result is that an asymptotically flat solution to the vacuum Einstein equation, arising from a regular initial data set, which admits a discrete isometry (near null infinity) that maps any point to its chronological future, must be stationary near null infinity (see Theorem 1.1 or a more precise formulation Theorem 1.2 in the article). The proof consists of three main steps: first a ``candidate'' stationary Killing field is found for a large class of asymptotically flat spacetimes; second by exploiting the time-periodicity assumption it is proved that this vector field satisfies the Killing equation to all order; third it is proved by earlier methods of Alexakis-Schlue-Shao and Ionescu-Klainerman that the deformation tensor of this vector field indeed vanishes identically in a neighbourhood of infinity.