Towards Long-time Geometrization: Stability of the Double-Cusp Spacetimes Under T2-Symmetry

Abstract

Since the early years of General Relativity, understanding the long-time behavior of the cosmological solutions of Einstein's vacuum equations has been a fundamental yet challenging task. Solutions with global symmetries, or perturbations thereof, have been extensively studied and are reasonably understood. On the other hand, thanks to the work of Fischer-Moncrief and M. Anderson, it is known that there is a tight relation between the future evolution of solutions and the Thurston decomposition of the spatial 3-manifold. Consequently, cosmological spacetimes developing a future asymptotic symmetry should represent only a negligible part of a much larger yet unexplored solution landscape. In this work, we revisit a program initiated by the second named author, aimed at constructing a new type of cosmological solution first posed by M. Anderson, where (at the right scale) two hyperbolic manifolds with a cusp separate from each other through a thin torus neck. Specifically, we prove that the so-called double-cusp solution, which models the torus neck, is stable under small $\Sa \times \Sa$ - symmetry-preserving perturbations. The proof, which has interest on its own, reduces to proving the stability of a geodesic segment as a wave map into the hyperbolic plane and partially relates to the work of Sideris on wave maps and the work of Ringström on the future asymptotics of Gowdy spacetimes. Additionally, we also establish the future long-time existence for the wave map equations for almost all initial data. The proof of this relies primarily on pointwise estimates derived using the energy-momentum tensor.