Bartnik

PPP Australien: Bartniks Massenfunktional -- Cederbaum, McCormick

01.01.2016 bis 31.12.2017

This project is in Mathematical General Relativity (GR). In 1989, Robert Bartnik defined a functional assigning a “mass” to a set of “Bartnik data“: a Riemannian metric and a prescribed (positive) mean curvature function H on the 2-sphere. This mass is defined as the infimum of the total (ADM) mass over all asymptotically flat Riemannian manifolds with non-negative scalar curvature into which the given data isometrically embed as outer minimizing inner boundary. Bartnik’s mass is relevant for the theoretical foundations of GR as it satisfies many desirable properties suggested by Christodoulou-Yau.
Understanding whether minimizers exist is crucial for physical applicability of Bartnik’s mass.