Gauge stability of 3+1 formulations of General Relativity

We present a general approach to the analysis of gauge stability of 3+1 formulations of General Relativity (GR). Evolution of coordinate perturbations and the corresponding perturbations of lapse and shift can be described by a system of eight quasi-linear partial differential equations. Stability with respect to gauge perturbations depends on a choice of gauge and a background metric, but it does not depend on a particular form of a 3+1 system if its constrained solutions are equivalent to those of the Einstein equations. Stability of a number of known gauges is investigated in the limit of short-wavelength perturbations. All fixed gauges except a synchronous gauge are found to be ill-posed. A maximal slicing gauge and its parabolic extension are shown to be ill-posed as well. A necessary condition is derived for well-posedness of metric-dependent algebraic gauges. Well-posed metric-dependent gauges are found, however, to be generally unstable. Both instability and ill-posedness are associated with perturbations of physical accelerations of reference frames.