The Cauchy problems for Einstein metrics and parallel spinors (Q2376969)

Given a metric on a space-like hypersurface and a symmetric tensor field \(W\), it is a classical result of Lorentzian geometry that this metric can locally be extended to an Einstein metric on the ambient space with \(W\) as 2nd fundamental form, provided the contracted Gauss and Codazzi-Mainardi equations are satisfied. It is also well known that the corresponding Cauchy problem for Einstein metrics in the Riemannian setting cannot always be solved. However, due to a result of Koiso in the analytic category a solution always exists. The current paper studies the related Cauchy problem of extending a generalized Killing spinor to a parallel spinor on a Riemannian ambient space. Using the result of Koiso and again the Cauchy-Kowalewskaya theorem, the authors prove that this problem can be uniquely solved in the analytic category. Furthermore, the authors show that generalized Killing spinors exist on many \(3\)-dimensional spin manifolds, both in the analytic and smooth category. Thus, since CMC hypersurfaces in Einstein manifolds are analytic, the authors can deduce that the Cauchy problem of extending spinors does not admit solutions for many examples in the smooth category (for any dimension \(n\geq 3\)). In particular, such generalized Killing spinors exist on the real projective \(3\)-space. The proof for the existence of generalized Killing spinors on many spin manifolds \(M\) uses the mass endomorphism in order to show that the infimum (in the conformal class) of the first positive eigenvalue of the Dirac operator is strictly smaller than for the case of the round sphere. For \(n=3\) the eigenspinor which realizes this infimum gives rise by conformal change to a generalized Killing spinor on some open dense submanifold of \(M\).