Local existence and continuation criterion for solutions of the spherically symmetric Einstein-Vlasov-Maxwell system (Q1878368)

The authors of this very interesting paper study the Einstein-Vlasov-Maxwell system written in the spherically symmetric spatial asymptotically flat case. The metric has a form in Schwarzschild coordinates, \(ds^2=g_{\alpha \beta }dx^{\alpha}\otimes dx^{\beta }\), \((x^{\alpha })=(x^0,x^{i})\equiv (x^0,\tilde x)\), \[ ds^2=-e^{2\mu }dt^2+e^{2\lambda }dr^2+r^2(d\theta^2+\sin^2\theta d\varphi^2), \] where \(\mu =\mu (t,r)\), \(\lambda =\lambda (t,r)\), \(t\in \mathbb R\), \(r\in [0,+\infty )\), \(\theta \in [0,\pi ]\), \(\varphi \in [0,2\pi]\). Then the Einstein-Vlasov-Maxwell system has the form \[ R_{\alpha\beta }-(1/2)g_{\alpha \beta }R=8\pi (T_{\alpha \beta }(f)+\tau_{\alpha \beta }(F)), \quad L_{X(F)}=0, \] \[ \nabla_{\alpha }F^{\alpha \beta }=J^{\beta }, \quad \nabla_{\alpha }F_{ \beta \gamma }+\nabla_{\beta }F_{ \gamma \alpha }+\nabla_{\gamma }F_{ \alpha \beta }=0. \] Here \(L_{X(F)}\) is the Lie derivative to the vector field \(X(F)\), \(f\) stands for the distribution function of the charged particles, \(F\) stands for the electromagnetic field created by the charged particles, \(8\pi (T_{\alpha \beta }(f)+\tau_{\alpha \beta }(F))\) is the stress-energy tensor, \(J=J(f)\) is the source (current) generated by \(f\). Using the iterative scheme, the authors prove the local existence and uniqueness of solutions for the Cauchy problem to the above stated system with sufficiently small initial data. A continuation criterion to global in-time solutions is established.