Black hole initial data from a nonconformal decomposition

We present an alternative approach to setting initial data in general relativity. We do not use a conformal decomposition, but instead express the 3-metric in terms of a given unit vector field and one unknown scalar field. In the case of axisymmetry, we have written a program to solve the resulting nonlinear elliptic equation. We have obtained solutions, both numerically and from a linearized analytic method, for a perturbation of a Schwarzschild black hole.