Two methods of temporal slicing of spacetimes, namely, maximal and harmonic slicing, are compared by considering the Schwarzschild spacetime. It is shown that slices which extend to spatial infinity can cover the whole spacetime in the case of harmonic slicing, in contrast with maximal slicing. In addition, the behavior of the lapse function is discussed, especially for various distributions on the initial slice.

• Received 24 July 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.52.6182