Exploiting a 3+1 analysis of the Mars-Simon tensor, conditions are found on a vacuum initial data set ensuring that its development is isometric to a subset of the Kerr spacetime.

The Bel and Bel-Robinson tensors were introduced nearly 50 years ago in an attempt to generalize to gravitation the energy-momentum tensor of electromagnetism. This generalization was successful from the mathematical point of view because these tensors share mathematical properties which are remarkably similar to those of the energy-momentum tensor of electromagnetism. However, the physical role of these tensors in general relativity has remained obscure and no interpretation has achieved wide acceptance. In principle, they cannot represent energy and the term superenergy has been coined for the hypothetical physical magnitude lying behind them. In this work, we try to shed light on the true physical meaning of superenergy by following the same procedure which enables us to give an interpretation of the electromagnetic energy. This procedure consists in performing an orthogonal splitting of the Bel and Bel-Robinson tensors and analyzing the different parts resulting from the splitting. In the electromagnetic case such splitting gives rise to the electromagnetic energy density, the Poynting vector and the electromagnetic stress tensor, each of them having a precise physical interpretation which is deduced from the dynamical laws of electromagnetism (Poynting theorem). The full orthogonal splitting of the Bel and Bel-Robinson tensors is more complex but, as expected, similarities with electromagnetism are present. Also the covariant divergence of the Bel tensor is analogous to the covariant divergence of the electromagnetic energy-momentum tensor and the orthogonal splitting of the former is found. The ensuing equations are to the superenergy what the Poynting theorem is to electromagnetism. Some consequences of these dynamical laws of superenergy are explored, among them the possibility of defining superenergy radiative states for the gravitational field.

In this work the full orthogonal splitting of Bel and Bel-Robinson tensors in a four dimensional spacetime is calculated. We also present the orthogonal splitting of the covariant divergence of Bel-Robinson tensor in vacuum and use the resulting expressions (dynamical laws of superenergy in vacuum) to introduce the concept of intrinsic superenergy radiative state. It is hoped that these results will contribute to the long-standing question of the physical interpretation of the Bel and the Bel-Robinson tensors.

A characterization of initial data sets for the Schwarzschild spacetime is provided. This characterization is obtained by performing a 3+1 decomposition of a certain invariant characterization of the Schwarzschild spacetime given in terms of concomitants of the Weyl tensor. This procedure renders a set of necessary conditions -which can be written in terms of the electric and magnetic parts of the Weyl tensor and their concomitants -for an initial data set to be a Schwarzschild initial data set. Our approach also provides a formula for a static Killing initial data set candidate -a KID candidate. Sufficient conditions for an initial data set to be a Schwarzschild initial data set are obtained by supplementing the necessary conditions with the requirement that the initial data set possesses a stationary Killing initial data set of the form given by our KID candidate. Thus, we obtain an algorithmic procedure of checking whether a given initial data set is Schwarzschildean or not.