Under normal circumstances most members of the general relativity community focus almost exclusively on the local properties of spacetime, such as the locally Euclidean structure of the manifold and the Lorentzian signature of the metric tensor. When combined with the classical Einstein field equations this gives an extremely successful empirical model of classical gravity and classical matter --- at least as long as one does not ask too many awkward questions about global issues, (such as global topology and global causal structure). We feel however that this is a tactical error --- even without invoking full-fledged "quantum gravity" we know that the standard model of particle physics is also an extremely good representation of some parts of empirical reality; and we had better be able to carry over all the good features of the standard model of particle physics --- at least into the realm of semi-classical quantum gravity. Doing so gives us some interesting global features that spacetime should possess: On physical grounds spacetime should be space-orientable, time-orientable, and spacetime-orientable, and it should possess a globally defined tetrad (vierbein, or in general a globally defined vielbein/n-bein). So on physical grounds spacetime should be parallelizable. This strongly suggests that the metric is not the fundamental physical quantity; a very good case can be made for the tetrad being more fundamental than the metric. Furthermore, a globally-defined "almost complex structure" is almost unavoidable. Ideas along these lines have previously been mooted, but much is buried in the pre-arXiv literature and is either forgotten or inaccessible. We shall revisit these ideas taking a perspective very much based on empirical physical observation.
As shown by Louko and Sorkin in 1995, topology change in Lorentzian signature involves spacetimes with singular points, which they called crotches. We modify their construction to obtain Lorentzian semiclassical wormholes in asymptotically AdS. These solutions are obtained by inserting crotches on known saddles, like the double-cone or multiple copies of the Lorentzian black hole. The crotches implement swap-identifications, and are classically located at an extremal surface. The resulting Lorentzian wormholes have an instanton action equal to their area, which is responsible for topological s…
van Vleck determinants: geodesic focussing and defocussing in Lorentzian spacetimes
van Vleck行列式是一个普遍存在的对象，出现在许多物理上有趣的情况下，例如：（1）量子时间演化算子和格林函数的WKB近似。(2)绝热近似热核。(3)函数积分的单圈近似。(4)几何光学和超声学中的焦散线理论。(5)黎曼流形中测地线流的聚焦与散焦。虽然所有这些主题是相互关联的，本文特别关注的最后一种情况下，并提出了广泛的理论发展，帮助计算的范Vleck行列式与洛伦兹时空中的测地流。{ \sl更不用说}这些发展对所指出的整个系列主题具有重要意义。PACS：04.20。- q，04.20。Cv，04.60。+ n.出现在物理评论D47（1993）3月15日。
The definition of a positive energy is investigated in a renormalizable 4-dimensional generally covariant model, which depends on the lorentzian complex structure and not the metric of spacetime. The gravitational content of the lorentzian complex structures is revealed by identifying the spacetime with special 4-dimensional surfaces of the G{2,2} Grassmannian manifold. The lorentzian complex structure is found to be a codimension-4 CR structure and its classification is studied using the Chern-Moser and Cartan methods. The spacetime metric is found to be a Fefferman-like metric of this codime…
In this paper we investigate four dimensional Lorentzian spacetimes with constant curvature invariants ($CSI$ spacetimes). We prove that if a four dimensional spacetime is $CSI$, then either the spacetime is locally homogeneous or the spacetime is a Kundt spacetime for which there exists a frame such that the positive boost weight components of all curvature tensors vanish and the boost weight zero components are all constant. We discuss some of the properties of the Kundt-$CSI$ spacetimes and their applications. In particular, we discuss $\mathcal{I}$-symmetric spaces and degenerate Kundt $CS…
In this paper, we prove Lorentzian positive mass theorem for spacetimes with distributional curvature. To do so, we introduce distributional curvature and generalized Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) momentum. As an application, we discuss a junction of spacetimes.
A recent study of filtered deformations of (graded subalgebras of) the minimal five-dimensional Poincaré superalgebra resulted in two classes of maximally supersymmetric spacetimes. One class are the well-known maximally supersymmetric backgrounds of minimal five-dimensional supergravity, whereas the other class does not seem to be related to supergravity. This paper is a study of the Kaluza--Klein reductions to four dimensions of this latter class of maximally supersymmetric spacetimes. We classify the lorentzian and riemannian Kaluza--Klein reductions of these backgrounds, determine the frac…
Holographic entanglement entropy was recently recast in terms of Riemannian flows or 'bit threads'. We consider the Lorentzian analog to reformulate the 'complexity=volume' conjecture using Lorentzian flows -- timelike vector fields whose minimum flux through a boundary subregion is equal to the volume of the homologous maximal bulk Cauchy slice. By the nesting of Lorentzian flows, holographic complexity is shown to obey a number of properties. Particularly, the rate of complexity is bounded below by conditional complexity, describing a multi-step optimization with intermediate and final targe…
The thermodynamics of the Taub-NUT solution has been predominantly studied in the Euclidean sector, upon imposing the condition for the absence of Misner strings. Such thermodynamics is quite exceptional: the periodicity of the Euclidean time is restricted and thence the NUT charge cannot be independently varied, the entropy is not equal to a quarter of the area, and the thermodynamic volume can be negative. In this paper we revisit this paradigm and study the thermodynamics of the Lorentzian Taub-NUT solution, maintaining (as recently shown relatively harmless) Misner strings. We argue that i…
We briefly review two recently developed extensions of the Lorentzian geometry of spacetime and prove that they are in fact closely related. The first is the concept of observer space, which generalizes the space of Lorentzian observers, i.e., future unit timelike vectors, using Cartan geometry. The second is the concept of Finsler spacetimes, which generalizes the Lorentzian metric of general relativity to an observer-dependent Finsler metric. We show that every Finsler spacetime possesses a well-defined observer space that can naturally be equipped with a Cartan geometry. Conversely, we deri…
Penrose's spinor calculus of 4-dimensional Lorentzian geometry is extended to the case of 5-dimensional Lorentzian geometry. Such fruitful ideas in Penrose's spinor calculus as the spin covariant derivative, the curvature spinors or the definition of the spin coefficients on a spin frame can be carried over to the spinor calculus in 5-dimensional Lorentzian geometry. The algebraic and differential properties of the curvature spinors are studied in detail and as an application we extend the well-known 4-dimensional Newman-Penrose formalism to a 5-dimensional spacetime.
Motivated by recent activities in Lorentzian Taub-NUT space thermodynamics, we calculate conserved charges of these spacetimes. We find additional mass, nut, angular momentum, electric and magnetic charge densities distributed along Misner string. These additional charges are needed to account for the difference between the values of the above charges at horizon and at infinity. We propose an unconstrained thermodynamical treatment for Taub-NUT spaces, where we introduce the nut charge $n$ as a relevant thermodynamic quantity with its chemical potential ϕ_n. The internal energy in this treatme…
Pre-gauging the cosmological scale factor $a(t)$ does not introduce unphysical degrees of freedom into the exact FLRW classical solution. It seems to lead, however, to a non-dynamical mini superspace. The missing ingredient, a generalised momentum enjoying canonical Dirac (rather than Poisson) brackets with the lapse function $n(t)$, calls for measure scaling which can be realised by means of a scalar field. The latter is essential for establishing a geometrical connection with the 5-dimensional Kaluza-Klein Schwarzschild-deSitter black hole. Contrary to the Hartle-Hawking approach, (i) The $t…
In minisuperspace quantum cosmology, the Lorentzian path integral formulations of the no-boundary and tunneling proposals have recently been analyzed. But it has been pointed out that the wave function of linearized perturbations around a homogeneous and isotropic background is of an inverse Gaussian form and thus that their correlation functions are divergent. In this paper, we revisit this issue and consider the problem of perturbations in Lorentzian quantum cosmology by modifying the dispersion relation based on trans-Planckian physics. We consider two modified dispersion relations, the gen…
The maximal analytic Schwarzschild spacetime is manifestly inextendible as a Lorentzian manifold with a twice continuously differentiable metric. In this paper, we prove the stronger statement that it is even inextendible as a Lorentzian manifold with a continuous metric. To capture the obstruction to continuous extensions through the curvature singularity, we introduce the notion of the spacelike diameter of a globally hyperbolic region of a Lorentzian manifold with a merely continuous metric and give a sufficient condition for the spacelike diameter to be finite. The investigation of low-reg…
In this work we revisit the notion of the (future) causal completion of a globally hyperbolic spacetime and endow it with the structure of a Lorentzian pre-length space. We further carry out this construction for a certain class of generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes.
A classical result in Lorentzian geometry states that a strongly causal spacetime is globally hyperbolic if and only if the Lorentzian distance is finite valued for every metric choice in the conformal class. It is proven here that a non-total imprisoning spacetime is globally hyperbolic if and only if for every metric choice in the conformal class the Lorentzian distance is continuous. Moreover, it is proven that a non-total imprisoning spacetime is causally simple if and only if for every metric choice in the conformal class the Lorentzian distance is continuous wherever it vanishes. Finally…
In this paper we scrutinize the concept of locally inertial reference frames (LIRF) in Lorentzian and Riemann-Cartan spacetime structures. We present rigorous mathematical definitions for those objects, something that needs preliminary a clear mathematical distinction between the concepts of observers, reference frames, naturally adapted coordinate functions to a given reference frame and which properties may characterize an inertial reference frame (if any) in the Lorentzian and Riemann-Cartan structures. We hope to have clarified some eventual obscure issues associated to the concept of LIRF…
In this note, we consider perturbations of Minkowski space as well as more general spacetimes on which the wave operator $\square_g$ is essentially self-adjoint. We review a recent result which gives the meromorphic continuation of the Lorentzian spectral zeta function density, i.e. of the trace density of complex powers $α\mapsto (\square_g-i \varepsilon)^{-α}$. In even dimension $n\geq 4$, the residue at $\frac{n}{2}-1$ is shown to be a multiple of the scalar curvature in the limit $\varepsilon\to 0^+$. This yields a spectral action for gravity in Lorentzian signature.
In three spacetime dimensions, we propose a generally covariant Lorentzian action of the classicalized holographic tensor network (cHTN) as the holographic reduction of the Einstein-Hilbert action of gravity in the presence of a negative cosmological constant. In this article, first, we investigate the properties of this Lorentzian action in the ground state. Next, based on the Euclidean action of the cHTN, we derive the gravity perturbation induced by a massive particle at rest in the cHTN as the Unruh effect. Finally, we view our holographic formulation of spacetime as a non-equilibrium seco…
The emergence of (3+1)-dimensional expanding spacetime from complex Langevin simulations of the Lorentzian type IIB matrix model with deformations
National Technical University of Athens（雅典国立技术大学）；Setsunan University（摂南大学）；Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)（意大利国家核物理研究所）；High Energy Accelerator Research Organization（高能加速器研究机构）；SOKENDAI（日本综合研究大学院大学）；Shizuoka University（静冈大学）
We discuss (arbitrary-dimensional) Lorentzian manifolds and the scalar polynomial curvature invariants constructed from the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives. Recently, we have shown that in four dimensions a Lorentzian spacetime metric is either $\mathcal{I}$-non-degenerate, and hence locally characterized by its scalar polynomial curvature invariants, or is a degenerate Kundt spacetime. We present a number of results that generalize these results to higher dimensions and discuss their consequences and potential physical applications.
We show that the Lorentzian Snyder models, together with their Galilei and Carroll limiting cases, can be rigorously constructed through the projective geometry description of Lorentzian, Galilean and Carrollian spaces with nonvanishing constant curvature. The projective coordinates of such curved spaces take the role of momenta, while translation generators over the same spaces are identified with noncommutative spacetime coordinates. In this way, one obtains a deformed phase space algebra, which fully characterizes the Snyder model and is invariant under boosts and rotations of the relevant …
Causal set quantum gravity is a Lorentzian approach to quantum gravity, based on the causal structure of spacetime. It models each spacetime configuration as a discrete causal network of spacetime points. As such, key questions of the approach include whether and how a reconstruction of a sufficiently coarse-grained spacetime geometry is possible from a causal set. As an example for the recovery of spatial geometry from discrete causal structure, the construction of a spatial distance function for causal sets is reviewed. Secondly, it is an open question whether the path sum over all causal se…
We study the low-regularity (in-)extendibility of spacetimes within the synthetic-geometric framework of Lorentzian length spaces developed in [KS:17]. To this end, we introduce appropriate notions of geodesics and timelike geodesic completeness and prove a general inextendibility result. Our results shed new light on recent analytic work in this direction and, for the first time, relate low-regularity inextendibility to (synthetic) curvature blow-up.
For Euclidean quantum field theories, Holland and Hollands have shown operator product expansion (OPE) coefficients satisfy "flow equations": For interaction parameter $λ$, the partial derivative of any OPE coefficient with respect to $λ$ is given by an integral over Euclidean space of a sum of products of other OPE coefficients. In this paper, we generalize these results for flat Euclidean space to curved Lorentzian spacetimes in the context of the solvable "toy model" of massive Klein-Gordon scalar field theory, with $m^2$ viewed as the "self-interaction parameter". Even in Minkowski spaceti…
Simple derivation of the classical generalized Moller-Wu-Lee transformations from general master equation is presented.We will argue that in fact we can implement Born's notion of rigid motion in both flat spacetime and arbitrary curved non-holonomic spacetimes containing classical and Colombeau's distributional sources.
Two spherically symmetric, static Lorentzian wormholes are obtained in tetrad theory of gravitation as a solution of the equation $ρ=ρ_t=0$, where $ρ=T_{ij}u^iu^j, ρ_t=(T_{ij}-{1/2}Tg_{ij})u^iu^j$ and $u^iu_i=-1$. This equation characterizes a class of spacetime which are "self-dual" (in the sense of electrogravity duality). The obtained solutions are characterized by two-parameters $k_1, k_2$ and have a common property that they reproduce the same metric spacetime. This metric is the static Lorentzian wormhole and it includes the Schwarzschild black hole. Calculating the energy content of the…
