Conformal geodesics and the evolution of spacetimes with positive Cosmological constant.

Abstract

This article provides a discussion on the construction of conformal Gaussian gauge systems to study the evolution of solutions to the Einstein field equations with positive Cosmological constant. This is done by means of a gauge based on the properties of conformal geodesics. The use of this gauge, combined with the extended conformal Einstein field equations, yields evolution equations in the form of a symmetric hyperbolic system for which standard Cauchy stability results can be employed. This strategy is used to study the global properties of de Sitter-like spacetimes with constant negative scalar curvature. It is then adapted to study the evolution of the Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime in the static region near the conformal boundary. This review is based on Minucci et al. 2021 Class. Quantum Grav. 38, 145026. (doi:10.1088/1361-6382/ac0356) and Minucci et al. 2023 Class. Quantum Grav. 40, 145005. (doi:10.1088/1361-6382/acdb3f). This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'At the interface of asymptotics, conformal methods and analysis in general relativity'.