Abstract

The Kerr-de Sitter metric, originally proposed by Carter in four dimensions and later extended by Gibbons, Lü, Page and Pope to all dimensions, is likely to play a relevant role among Lambda positive vacuum spacetimes. To better understand what makes it special, we calculate the asymptotic data characterizing the metric near conformal infinity. This requires a review of tools in conformal geometry, such as the Fefferman-Graham expansion, and its relation with the asymptotic initial value problem in arbitrary dimensions. The asymptotic data obtained for Kerr-de Sitter admits a straightforward generalization to a broader class of spacetimes that depends on a set of parameters, which we refer to as Kerr-de Sitter-like class. This class of metrics is obtained explicitly as limits or analytic extensions of Kerr-de Sitter and the space of parameters inherits a natural topological structure from the asymptotic data. Furthermore, we discuss additional characterizations within the Kerr-Schild type metrics and the algebraically special metrics that highlight the geometrical significance of the class.