THE INITIAL-VALUE PROBLEM FOR A CLASS OF GENERAL RELATIVISTIC FLUID BODIES

A body or collection of bodies made of perfect fluid can be described in general relativity by a solution of the Einstein-Euler system where the mass density has spatially compact support. It is shown that for certain equations of state there exists a wide class of solutions of this type corresponding to appropriate initial data given on a spacelike hypersurface. This class is not constrained by any symmetry requirements. The key element of the proof is to write the equations as a symmetric hyperbolic system which is regular both for nonvanishing density and in vacuum.