The spacetime positive mass theorem and path connectedness of initial data sets

The purpose of this talk is twofold: First we present a new proof of the spacetime positive mass theorem (joint with Demetre Kazaras and Marcus Khuri); second we discuss some new results about the topology of initial data sets (joint with Martin Lesourd).

The spacetime positive mass theorem that the mass of an initial data set is non-negative with equality if and only if the initial data set arises as subset of Minkowski space. This result has first been proven by Schoen and Yau using Jang's equation. There are further proofs by Witten using spinors and by Eichmair, Huang, Lee and Schoen using MOTS. Our proof uses Stern's integral formula technique and also leads to a new explicit lower bound of the mass which is even valid when the dominant energy condition is not satisfied.

A central conjecture in mathematical relativity is the final state conjecture which states that initial data sets will eventually approach Kerr black holes. In particular, this would imply that the space of initial data sets is path connected. Building upon the work of Marques and using deep and beautiful results of Carlotto and Li, we show that indeed the space of initial data set with compact trapped interior boundary is path connected.