Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-50/3/c/solution

With vanishing extrinsic curvature, the momentum constraint is identically satisfied and the vacuum Hamiltonian constraint reduces to . To evaluate that Ricci scalar, write , raise these intermediate indices with , and use . The Levi-Civita connection is
Substitution into the stated curvature convention gives
Tracing with cancels the gradient-square terms:
Here the Laplacian and norm on the right are those of the flat Euclidean metric. Thus the time-symmetric conformally flat vacuum initial data constraints become
The equivalence uses . This identity is also the three-dimensional specialization of scalar curvature under conformal rescaling; locally the conformal exponent is , so either fixed nonzero sign of gives the same metric.

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