A global analysis approach to the general relativistic fluid ball problem

That a self-gravitating perfect fluid in empty space has a spherical equilibrium configuration if it is static-i.e., nonrotating-is considered physically evident, but has not yet been rigorously derived from Einstein's field equations together with suitable asymptotic conditions. In this paper the global analysis techniques developed recently mainly by Fischer, Marsden, and Cantor are used to derive the result that if a family of static perfect fluid solutions with fixed total gravitational massm and fixed equation of state(p) satisfying 0 p and 0 d/dp < depends differentiably on a parameter and contains the spherically symmetric solution then it must consist of solutions diffeomorphic to the spherically symmetric one.Partially supported by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council, grant No. A8059.