Differential geometry from differential equations (Q5953705)

The origin of the present paper comes from the question how the Einstein field equation changes under a conformal transformation. To this topic the authors of the present paper have already published several papers. One of the reasons why this is an interesting question is related to the fact that light rays, i.e., light-like geodesics considered as point sets, do not change by a conformal transformation. Therefore, the characteristic initial value problem for the Einstein field equation has close relations to conformal transformations. A synonymous notion for ``characteristic initial value problem'' is ``null surface formulation of GR''. Here, the authors clarify many of the mathematical details of this research project. Especially, they give a relation of the second order partial differential equation (Einstein field equation) to a certain third order ordinary differential equation. This part may be of interest also for the application to other partial differential equations.