TRAPPED SURFACES IN VACUUM SPACETIMES

An earlier construction by the authors of sequences of globally regular, asymptotically flat initial data for the Einstein vacuum equations containing trapped surfaces for large values of the parameter is extended, from the time symmetric case considered previously, to the case of maximal slices. The resulting theorem shows rigourously that there exists a large class of initial configurations for non-time symmetric, pure gravitational waves satisfying the assumptions of the Penrose singularity theorem, and so must have a singularity to the future.