Characteristic formulations of general relativity and applications

Understand

General relativity can describe various gravitational systems of astrophysical relevance, like black holes and neutron stars, or even strongly coupled systems through the holographic duality.

• The characteristic initial (boundary) value problem has numerous applications in general relativity involving numerical studies and is often formulated using Bondi-like coordinates.
• Well-posedness of the resulting systems of partial differential equations, however, remains an open question.
• The answer to this question affects the accuracy, and potentially the reliability of conclusions drawn from numerical studies based on such formulations.