On the area of the symmetry orbits in T2 symmetric spacetimes

We obtain a global existence result for the Einstein equations. We show that in the maximal Cauchy development of vacuum T-2 symmetric initial data with nonvanishing twist constant, except for the special case of flat Kasner initial data, the area of the T-2 group orbits takes on all positive values. This result shows that the areal time coordinate R which covers these spacetimes runs from zero to infinity, with the singularity occurring at R = 0.