Einstein–Klein–Gordon spacetimes in the harmonic near-Minkowski regime

Abstract

We study the initial value problem for the Einstein–Klein–Gordon system and establish the global nonlinear stability of massive matter in the near-Minkowski regime when the initial geometry is a perturbation of an asymptotically flat, spacelike hypersurface in Minkowski spacetime and the metric enjoys the harmonic decay $1/r$ (in terms of a suitable distance function $r$ at spatial infinity). Our analysis encompasses matter fields that have small energy norm and solely enjoys a slow decay at spacelike infinity. Our proof is based on the Euclidean-hyperboloidal foliation method recently introduced by the authors, and distinguishes between the decay along asymptotically hyperbolic slices and the decay along asymptotically Euclidean slices. We carefully analyze the decay of metric components at the harmonic level $1/r$, especially the metric component in the direction of the light cone. In presence of such a slow-decaying matter field, we establish a global existence theory for the Einstein equations expressed as a coupled system of nonlinear wave and Klein–Gordon equations.