Natural potentials for TT tensors, divergence-free symmetric tensors and linearised relativistic initial data

Abstract

Let $N$ be a natural tensor which vanishes at a metric $g\_0$. By diffeomorphism invariance, $DN(g\_0)^*$ takes values in divergence-free symmetric $2$-tensors, and in TT tensors if moreover $DN(g\_0)$ kills conformal directions. Such operators are local potentials, which we call machines: they produce smooth compactly supported tensors with the required property and, on closed manifolds, all of them up to a finite-dimensional space when their symbol is injective. On Einstein manifolds of every dimension, the linearised Bach tensor gives the operator $P$ of an earlier paper, which factorises on TT tensors into the massless and partially massless spin-$2$ operators; we also construct machines on Bach-flat, conformally flat and Ricci-parallel metrics. Replacing the diffeomorphisms of $M$ by those of the vacuum development, we obtain potentials, with a Fredholm property, for the linearised Einstein constraint equations on arbitrary spacelike hypersurfaces of Minkowski, de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spacetimes.