This paper has been withdrawn; it is superseded by the paper: arXiv:1506.00611, with G.J. Galloway, which combines the results of this paper with those in arXiv:1503.05540
In a recent work, Galloway [9] proved a local foliation theorem by MOTSs for a 3-dimensional initial data set $(M,g,K)$ with mean curvature $τ\le0$ in a 4-dimensional spacetime $(\overline M,\overline g)$ when (under suitable assumptions) $M$ has a stable spherical MOTS $Σ$ which achieves an upper bound for the area. He proved that each leaf is a round 2-sphere with the same constant Gaussian curvature. Here, we improve his result by dropping the hypothesis on the mean curvature of $M$ and showing that each leaf is a minimal surface. We show that in an outer neighborhood $U$ of $Σ$, the metric $g$ splits as the product $([0,\varepsilon)\timesΣ,dt^2+g_0)$, where $(Σ,g_0)$ is a round 2-sphere. In fact, we prove that the outer neighborhood $U$ can be isometrically embedded into the 4-dimensional Nariai spacetime $(\overline N,\overline h)$ as a spacelike hypersurface so that $g|_U$ is the induced metric from $\overline N$ and $K|_U$ is the second fundamental form of $U$ in $\overline N$. This completely classifies the local geometry of such initial data sets.
A marginally trapped surface in the four-dimensional Minkowski space is a spacelike surface whose mean curvature vector is lightlike at each point. In the present paper we find all marginally trapped surfaces with pointwise 1-type Gauss map. We prove that a marginally trapped surface is of pointwise 1-type Gauss map if and only if it has parallel mean curvature vector field.
We study an area minimization problem for spacelike zero mean curvature surfaces in four dimensional Lorentz-Minkowski space. The areas of these surfaces are compared of with the areas of certain marginally trapped surfaces having the same boundary values.
The concept of a marginally trapped surface is important in the theory of general relativity. In the Schwarzschild black hole spacetime, its event horizon is foliated by marginally trapped surfaces. In a more general black hole spacetime, the concept of a marginally trapped surface is closely related to various sorts of horizon, for example, the apparent horizon, the trapping boundary, the isolated horizon and the dynamical horizon. In this paper, we study the set of marginally trapped surfaces in a perturbed Schwarzschild spacetime. We show that for every incoming null hypersurface which is n…
Canonical parameters on marginally trapped surfaces in the Minkowski 4-space
University of Priština in Kosovska Mitrovica, Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics（普里什蒂纳大学科索沃米特罗维察分校科学与数学学院）；Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences（保加利亚科学院数学与信息学研究所）
We give explicit representation formulas for marginally trapped submanifolds of co-dimension two in pseudo-Riemannian spaces with arbitrary signature and constant sectional curvature. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Franki Dillen, 1963-2013.
In this paper we generalize the main result of [13] in two different situations: in the first case for MOTSs of genus greater than one and, in the second case, for MOTSs of high dimension with negative $σ$-constant. In both cases we obtain a splitting result for the ambient manifold when it contains a stable closed MOTS which saturates a lower bound for the area (in dimension 2) or for the volume (in dimension $\ge3$). These results are extensions of [21, Theorem 3] and [20, Theorem 3] to general (non-time-symmetric) initial data sets.
The lightlike geometry of codimension two spacelike submanifolds in Lorentz-Minkowski space has been developed in [Izumiya, S. and Romero Fuster, M. C. Selecta Mathematica (NS), 13 23--55 (2007)] which is a natural Lorentzian analogue of the classical Euclidean differential geometry of hypersurfaces. In this paper we investigate a special class of surfaces (i.e., marginally trapped surfaces) in Minkowski space-time from the view point of the lightlike geometry.
A marginally trapped surface in a spacetime is a Riemannian surface whose mean curvature vector is lightlike at every point. In this paper we give an up-to-date overview of the differential geometric study of these surfaces in Minkowski, de Sitter, anti-de Sitter and Robertson-Walker spacetimes. We give the general local descriptions proven by Anciaux and his coworkers as well as the known classifications of marginally trapped surfaces satisfying one of the following additional geometric conditions: having positive relative nullity, having parallel mean curvature vector field, having finite ty…
In this article we investigate the restrictions imposed by the dominant energy condition (DEC) on the topology and conformal type of \textsl{possibly non-compact} marginally outer-trapped surfaces (thus extending Hawking's classical theorem on the topology of black holes). We first prove that an unbounded, stable marginally outer trapped surface in an initial data set $(M,g,k)$ obeying the dominant energy condition is conformally diffeomorphic to either the plane $\mathbb{C}$ or to the cylinder $\mathbb{A}$ and in the latter case infinitesimal rigidity holds. As a corollary, when the DEC holds…
We solve the Plateau problem for marginally outer trapped surfaces in general Cauchy data sets. We employ the Perron method and tools from geometric measure theory to force and control a blow-up of Jang's equation. Substantial new geometric insights regarding the lower order properties of marginally outer trapped surfaces are gained in the process. The techniques developed in this paper are flexible and can be adapted to other non-variational existence problems.
A spacelike surface $S\subset \mathbb{S}^4_1$ is marginally trapped if its mean curvature vector is lightlike. On any oriented spacelike surface $S \subset \mathbb{S}^4_1$ we show that a choice of orientation of the normal bundle $ν(S)$ determines a smooth map $G: S \to \mathbb{S}^3$ which we call the null Gauss map of $S$. We show that if $S$ is marginally trapped then $G$ is a conformal immersion away the zeros of certain quadratic Hopf-differential of $S$ and so the surface $G(S)$ is uniquely determined up to conformal transformations of $\mathbb{S}^3$ by two invariants: the normal Hopf dif…
We give a conformal representation in terms of meromorphic data for a certain class of spacelike surfaces in the Lorentz-Minkowski 4-space L^4 whose mean curvature vector is either lightlike or zero at each point. This representation extends simultaneously the Weierstrass representation for minimal surfaces in Euclidean 3-space and for maximal surfaces in the Lorentz-Minkowski 3-space, and the Bryant representation for mean curvature one surfaces in the hyperbolic 3-space and in the de Sitter 3-space.
In the present paper we provide new examples of marginally trapped surfaces and tubes in FLRW spacetimes by using a basic relation between these objects and CMC surfaces in 3-manifolds. We also provide a new method to construct marginally trapped surfaces in closed FLRW spacetimes, which is based on the classical Hopf map. The utility of this method is illustrated by providing marginally trapped surfaces crossing expanding and collapsing regions of a closed FLRW spacetime. The approach introduced in this paper is also extended to twisted spaces.
A marginally outer trapped hypersurface is a generalization of minimal hypersurfaces originated from general relativity. We show a curvature estimate for stable marginally outer trapped hypersurfaces up to the free boundary satisfying a uniform area bound. Our proof is based on an iteration argument. The curvature estimate was previously known via a blowup argument for stable minimal hypersurfaces.
We investigate the geometric properties of marginally trapped surfaces (surfaces which have null mean curvature vector) in the spaces of oriented geodesics of Euclidean 3-space and hyperbolic 3-space, endowed with their canonical neutral Kaehler structures. We prove that every rank one surface in these four manifolds is marginally trapped. In the Euclidean case we show that Lagrangian rotationally symmetric sections are marginally trapped and construct an explicit family of marginally trapped Lagrangian tori. In the hyperbolic case we explore the relationship between marginally trapped and Wei…
We consider the scattering and lens rigidity of compact surfaces with boundary that have a trapped geodesic. In particular we show that the flat cylinder and the flat Möbius strip are determined by their lens data. We also see by example that the flat Möbius strip is not determined by it's scattering data. We then consider the case of negatively curved cylinders with convex boundary and show that they are lens rigid.
As discussed in the paper, in a matter-filled spacetime, perhaps with positive cosmological constant, a stable marginally outer trapped 2-sphere must satisfy a certain area inquality. Namely, its area must be bounded above by $4π/c$, where $c > 0$ is a lower bound on a natural energy momentum term. In this note we consider the rigidity that results for stable, or weakly outermost, marginally outer trapped 2-spheres that achieve this upper bound on the area. The "canonical" dynamical horizon in Vaidya spacetime and certain spacelike hypersurfaces in Nariai spacetime provide illustrations of the…
We derive integral and sup-estimates for the curvature of stably marginally outer trapped surfaces in a sliced space-time. The estimates bound the shear of a marginally outer trapped surface in terms of the intrinsic and extrinsic curvature of a slice containing the surface. These estimates are well adapted to situations of physical insterest, such as dynamical horizons.
In a matter-filled spacetime, perhaps with positive cosmological constant, a stable marginally outer trapped 2-sphere must satisfy a certain area inequality. Namely, as discussed in the paper, its area must be bounded above by $4π/c$, where $c > 0$ is a lower bound on a natural energy-momentum term. We then consider the rigidity that results for stable, or weakly outermost, marginally outer trapped 2-spheres that achieve this upper bound on the area. In particular, we prove a splitting result for 3-dimensional initial data sets analogous to a result of Bray, Brendle and Neves [10] concerning a…
A marginally trapped surface in the four-dimensional Minkowski space is a spacelike surface whose mean curvature vector is lightlike at each point. We associate a geometrically determined moving frame field to such a surface and using the derivative formulas for this frame field we obtain seven invariant functions. Our main theorem states that these seven invariants determine the surface up to a motion in Minkowski space. We introduce meridian surfaces as one-parameter systems of meridians of a rotational hypersurface in the four-dimensional Minkowski space. We find all marginally trapped meri…
We construct an example of a spherically symmetric black hole interior in which there is NO (spherically symmetric) marginally trapped tube asymptotic to the event horizon. The construction uses a self-gravitating massive scalar field matter model, and the key condition we impose is that the scalar field $ϕ$ be bounded below by a positive constant along the event horizon.
We construct new integrable systems to present Weierstrass type representations for spacelike surfaces whose mean curvature vector $\mathbf{H}$ satisfies the null condition $\langle \mathbf{H}, \mathbf{H} \rangle=0$ in the four dimensional Lorentz-Minkowski space ${\mathbb{L}}^{4}$. Our new Weierstrass presentations extend simultaneously classical Weierstrass representations (of the first kind and the second kind) for maximal surfaces in ${\mathbb{L}}^{3}$ and minimal surfaces in ${\mathbb{R}}^{3}$. We solve a linear partial differental equation to construct explicit examples of marginally tra…
We show that the maximal future development of asymptotically flat spherically symmetric black hole initial data for a self-gravitating nonlinear scalar field, also called a Higgs field, contains a connected, achronal marginally trapped tube which is asymptotic to the event horizon of the black hole, provided the initial data is sufficiently small and decays like O(r^{-1/2}), and the potential function V is nonnegative with bounded second derivative. This result can be loosely interpreted as a statement about the stability of `nice' asymptotic behavior of marginally trapped tubes under certain…
We give local, explicit representation formulas for n-dimensional spacelike submanifolds which are marginally trapped in the Minkowski space, the de Sitter and anti de Sitter spaces and the Lorentzian products of the sphere and the hyperbolic space by the real line.
A marginally trapped surface in the four-dimensional Minkowski space is a spacelike surface whose mean curvature vector is lightlike at each point. We introduce meridian surfaces of parabolic type as one-parameter systems of meridians of a rotational hypersurface with lightlike axis in Minkowski 4-space and find their basic invariants. We find all marginally trapped meridian surfaces of parabolic type and give a geometric construction of these surfaces.
In a recent paper (gr-qc/0509107) the author and Rick Schoen obtained a generalization to higher dimensions of a classical result of Hawking concerning the topology of black holes. It was proved that, apart from certain exceptional circumstances, cross sections of the event horizon, in the stationary case, and 'weakly outermost' marginally outer trapped surfaces, in the general case, in black hole spacetimes obeying the dominant energy condition, are of positive Yamabe type. This implies many well-known restrictions on the topology, and is consistent with recent examples of five dimensional st…
We give conditions on a general stress-energy tensor T_{αβ} in a spherically symmetric black hole spacetime which are sufficient to guarantee that the black hole will contain a (spherically symmetric) marginally trapped tube which is eventually achronal, connected, and asymptotic to the event horizon. Price law decay per se is not required for this asymptotic result, and in this general setting, such decay only implies that the marginally trapped tube has finite length with respect to the induced metric. We do, however, impose a smallness condition (B1) which one may obtain in practice by impo…
We give a local characterization of codimension two submanifolds which are marginally trapped in Robertson-Walker spaces, in terms of an algebraic equation to be satisfied by the height function. We prove the existence of a large number of local solutions. We refine the description in the case of curves with null acceleration in three-dimensional spaces Robertson-Walker spaces, and in the case of codimension two submanifolds whose second fundamental form is null
Marginally outer trapped surfaces are widely considered as the best quasi-local replacements for event horizons of black holes in General Relativity. However, this equivalence is far from being proved, even in stationary and static situations. In this paper we study an important aspect of this equivalence, namely whether classic uniqueness theorems of static black holes can be extended to static spacetimes containing weakly outer trapped surfaces or not. Our main theorem states that, under reasonable hypotheses, a static spacetime satisfying the null energy condition and containing an asymptot…
The aim of this paper is to collect some facts about the blowup of Jang's equation. First, we discuss how to construct solutions that blow up at an outermost MOTS. Second, we exclude the possibility that there are extra blowup surfaces in data sets with non-positive mean curvature. Then we investigate the rate of convergence of the blowup to a cylinder near a strictly stable MOTS and show exponential convergence near a strictly stable MOTS.
We prove that the flat product metric on $D^n\times S^1$ is scattering rigid where $D^n$ is the unit ball in $\R^n$ and $n\geq 2$. The scattering data (loosely speaking) of a Riemannian manifold with boundary is map $S:U^+\partial M\to U^-\partial M$ from unit vectors $V$ at the boundary that point inward to unit vectors at the boundary that point outwards. The map (where defined) takes $V$ to $γ'_V(T_0)$ where $γ_V$ is the unit speed geodesic determined by $V$ and $T_0$ is the first positive value of $t$ (when it exists) such that $γ_V(t)$ again lies in the boundary. We show that any other Ri…
We show that any vacuum initial data set containing a marginally outer trapped surface S and satisfying a "no KIDs" condition can be perturbed near S so that S becomes strictly outer trapped in the new vacuum initial data set. This, together with the results in [9], gives a precise sense in which generic initial data containing marginally outer trapped surfaces lead to geodesically incomplete spacetimes.
The purpose of the present work is to study (marginally) trapped submanifolds lying in a null hypersurface. Let $(M,g,N)\to\Bm(c)$ be a null hypersurface of a space-time with constant sectional curvature $c$, endowed with a Screen Integrable and Conformal rigging $N$. The (Marginally) Trapped Submanifolds we are interested with are particular leaves of the screen distribution according to the sign of their expansions. We prove that if $c$ is non-positive, then $\Bm$ cannot contain a null non-expanding horizon. In the case $c$ is positive, we show that if $\Bm$ satisfies Einstein's equation and…
This paper considers some fundamental questions concerning marginally trapped surfaces, or apparent horizons, in Cauchy data sets for the Einstein equation. An area estimate for outermost marginally trapped surfaces is proved. The proof makes use of an existence result for marginal surfaces, in the presence of barriers, curvature estimates, together with a novel surgery construction for marginal surfaces. These results are applied to characterize the boundary of the trapped region.
In this article we extend several foundational results of the theory of complete minimal surfaces of finite index in the Euclidean space to minimal surfaces in asymptotically flat manifolds and, more generally, to marginally outer-trapped surfaces in initial data sets of General Relativity. We show that if an asymptotically flat 3-manifold (M,g) of nonnegative scalar curvature contains a non-compact, properly embedded minimal surface which is stable and has quadratic area growth, then it is isometric to the flat R^{3}. This implies, for instance, that in presence of a positive ADM mass any seq…
We examine some common features of minimal surfaces, nonzero constant mean curvature surfaces and marginally outer trapped surfaces, concerning their stability and rigidity, and consider some applications to Riemannian geometry and general relativity.
We explore various notions of stability for surfaces embedded and immersed in spacetimes and initial data sets. The interest in such surfaces lies in their potential to go beyond the variational techniques which often underlie the study of minimal and CMC surfaces. We prove two versions of Christodoulou-Yau estimate for $\mathbf{H}$-stable surfaces, a Cohn-Vossen type inequality for non-compact stable marginally outer trapped surface (MOTS), and a global theorem on the topology of $\mathbf{H}$-stable surfaces. Moreover, we give a definition of capillary stability for MOTS with boundary. This n…
We introduce a natural generalization of marginally outer trapped surfaces, called immersed marginally outer trapped surfaces, and prove that three dimensional asymptotically flat initial data sets either contain such surfaces or are diffeomorphic to R^3. We establish a generalization of the Penrose singularity theorem which shows that the presence of an immersed marginally outer trapped surface generically implies the null geodesic incompleteness of any spacetime that satisfies the null energy condition and which admits a non-compact Cauchy surface. Taken together, these results can be viewed…
We present several rigidity results for initial data sets motivated by the positive mass theorem. An important step in our proofs here is to establish conditions that ensure that a marginally outer trapped surface is "weakly outermost". A rigidity result for Riemannian manifolds with a lower bound on their scalar curvature is included as a special case.
In a recent paper, Eichmair, Galloway and Pollack have proved a Gannon-Lee-type singularity theorem based on the existence of marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTS) on noncompact initial data sets for globally hyperbolic spacetimes. However, one might wonder whether the corresponding incomplete geodesics could still be complete in a possible non-globally hyperbolic extension of spacetime. In this note, some variants of that result are given with weaker causality assumptions, thus suggesting that the answer is generically negative, at least if the putative extension has no closed timelike cur…
In a recent paper, Eichmair, Galloway and Pollack have proved a Gannon-Lee-type singularity theorem based on the existence of marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTS) on noncompact initial data sets for globally hyperbolic spacetimes. This result requires that the MOTS be generic in a suitable sense. In the same spirit, this author has proven some variants of that result which hold for weaker causal conditions on spacetime, but which concern (generic) marginally trapped surfaces (MTS) rather than MOTS, i.e., most of the results need a condition on the convergence of the ingoing family of norma…
Small deformations of marginally (outer) trapped surfaces are considered by using their stability operator. In the case of spherical symmetry, one can use these deformations on any marginally trapped round sphere to prove several interesting results. The concept of 'core' of a black hole is introduced: it is a minimal region that one should remove from the spacetime in order to get rid of all possible closed trapped surfaces. In spherical symmetry one can prove that the spherical marginally trapped tube is the boundary of a core. By using a novel formula for the principal eigenvalue of the sta…
For a Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ with strictly convex boundary $\partial M$, the lens data consists in the set of lengths of geodesics $γ$ with endpoints on $\partial M$, together with their endpoints $(x_-,x_+)\in \partial M\times \partial M$ and tangent exit vectors $(v_-,v_+)\in T_{x_-} M\times T_{x_+} M$. We show deformation lens rigidity for a large class of manifolds which includes all manifolds with negative curvature and strictly convex boundary, possibly with non-trivial topology and trapped geodesics. For the same class of manifolds in dimension $2$, we prove that the set of endpoin…
In [5], a rigidity result was obtained for outermost marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) that do not admit metrics of positive scalar curvature. This allowed one to treat the "borderline case" in the author's work with R. Schoen concerning the topology of higher dimensional black holes [8]. The proof of this rigidity result involved bending the initial data manifold in the vicinity of the MOTS within the ambient spacetime. In this note we show how to circumvent this step, and thereby obtain a pure initial data version of this rigidity result and its consequence concerning the topology of…
Small deformations of marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTS) are studied by using the stability operator introduced by Andersson-Mars-Simon. Novel formulae for the principal eigenvalue are presented. A characterization of the many marginally outer trapped tubes (MOTT) passing through a given MOTS is given, and the possibility of selecting a privileged MOTT is discussed. This is related to the concept of `core' of a black hole: a minimal region that one should remove from the spacetime in order to get rid of all possible closed trapped surfaces. In spherical symmetry one can prove that the sp…
Under the assumption that the X-ray transform over symmetric solenoidal 2-tensors is injective, we prove that smooth compact connected manifolds with strictly convex boundary, no conjugate points and a hyperbolic trapped set are locally marked boundary rigid.
The aim of this work is to present an initial data version of Hawking's theorem on the topology of back hole spacetimes in the context of manifolds with boundary. More precisely, we generalize the results of G. J. Galloway and R. Schoen [13] and G. J. Galloway [11, 12] by proving that a compact free boundary stable marginally outer trapped surface (MOTS) $Σ$ in an initial data set with boundary satisfying natural dominant energy conditions (DEC) is of positive Yamabe type, i.e. $Σ$ admits a metric of positive scalar curvature with minimal boundary, provided $Σ$ is outermost. To do so, we prove…
We solve Einstein vacuum equations in a spacetime region up to the "center" of gravitational collapse. Within this region, we construct a sequence of marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTS) with areas going to zero. These MOTS form a marginally outer trapped tube (apparent horizon). It emerges from a point and is smooth (except at that point) and spacelike. In the proof we employ a scale critical trapped surface formation criterion established by An and Luk and a new type of quasilinear elliptic equation is studied. The main conclusion of this paper proves a conjecture of Ashtekar on black ho…
