Properties of the Null Distance and Spacetime Convergence
Brian Allen, Annegret Burtscher
备注：
57 pages, 9 figures, comments welcome. v2: removed parts of sections 3.3 and 3.4 but the main results and other sections are not affected, minor changes throughout. v3: Rewrote and expanded background section, rewrote Theorem 1.3, referee comments addressed. To appear in IMRN
发表信息：
International Mathematics Research Notices, Volume 2022, Issue 10 (May 2022), Pages 7729-7808
The null distance for Lorentzian manifolds was recently introduced by Sormani and Vega. Under mild assumptions on the time function of the spacetime, the null distance gives rise to an intrinsic, conformally invariant metric that induces the manifold topology. We show when warped products of low regularity and globally hyperbolic spacetimes endowed with the null distance are (local) integral current spaces. This metric and integral current structure sets the stage for investigating convergence analogous to Riemannian geometry. Our main theorem is a general convergence result for warped product spacetimes relating uniform, Gromov--Hausdorff and Sormani--Wenger intrinsic flat convergence of the corresponding null distances. In addition, we show that non-uniform convergence of warping functions in general leads to distinct limiting behavior, such as limits that disagree.
It is shown that the space of null geodesics of a causally simple Lorentzian manifold is Hausdorff if it admits an open conformal embedding into a globally hyperbolic spacetime. This provides an obstruction to conformal embeddings of causally simple spacetimes into globally hyperbolic ones irrespective of curvature conditions. Examples of causally simple spacetimes are given not conformally embeddable into globally hyperbolic ones.
It is shown that the space of null geodesics of a star-shaped causally simple subset of Minkowski space is contactomorphic to the canonical contact structure in the spherical cotangent bundle of $\mathbb{R}^n$. In the $3$-dimensional case we prove a similar result for a large class of causally simple contractible subsets of an arbitrary globally hyperbolic spacetime applying methods from the theory of contact-convex surfaces. Moreover we prove that under certain assumptions the space of null geodesics of a causally simple spacetime embeds with smooth boundary into the space of null geodesics o…
In this paper we review and extend some results in the literature pertaining to spacetime topology while naturally utilizing properties of the codimension 2 null cut locus. Our results fall into two classes, depending on whether or not one assumes the presence of horizons. Included among the spacetimes we consider are those that apply to the asymptotically (locally) AdS setting.
There are two important statements regarding the Trautman-Bondi mass [1,8,5] at null infinity: one is the positivity [7,6], and the other is the Bondi mass loss formula [1], which are both global in nature. The positivity of the quasi-local mass can potentially lead to a local description at null infinity. This is confirmed for the Vaidya spacetime in this note. We study the Wang-Yau quasi-local mass on surfaces of fixed size at the null infinity of the Vaidya spacetime. The optimal embedding equation is solved explicitly and the quasi-local mass is evaluated in terms of the mass aspect functi…
We consider polyhedra and 4-polytopes in Minkowski spacetime - in particular, null polyhedra with zero volume, and 4-polytopes that have such polyhedra as their hyperfaces. We present the basic properties of several classes of null-faced 4-polytopes: 4-simplices, "tetrahedral diamonds" and 4-parallelotopes. We propose a "most regular" representative of each class. The most-regular parallelotope is of particular interest: its edges, faces and hyperfaces are all congruent, and it features both null hyperplanes and null segments. A tiling of spacetime with copies of this polytope can be viewed al…
Chruściel, Isenberg, and Pollack constructed a class of vacuum cosmological spacetimes that do not admit Cauchy surfaces with constant mean curvature. We prove that, for sufficiently large values of the gluing parameter, these examples are both future and past null geodesically incomplete. The authors are honored to dedicate this paper to Robert Bartnik on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
The Einstein Equation on 4-dimensional Lorentzian manifolds admitting recurrent null vector fields is discussed. Several examples of a special form are constructed. The holonomy algebras, Petrov types and the Lie algebras of Killing vector fields of the obtained metrics are found.
In a recent work it was shown that conformal Carroll geometries are canonically equipped with a null-tractor bundle generalizing the tractor bundle of conformal geometry. We here show that in the case of the conformal boundary of an asymptotically flat spacetime of any dimension d>=3, this null-tractor bundle over null infinity can be canonically derived from the interior spacetime geometry. As was previously discussed, compatible normal connections on the null-tractor bundle are not unique: We prove that they are in fact in one-to-one correspondence with the germ of the asymptotically flat sp…
The spherically symmetric null hypersurfaces in a Schwarzschild spacetime are smooth away from the singularities and foliate the spacetime. We prove the existence of more general foliations by null hypersurfaces without the spherical symmetry condition. In fact we also relax the spherical symmetry of the ambient spacetime and prove a more general result: in a perturbed Schwarzschild spacetime (not necessary being vacuum), nearly round null hypersurfaces can be extended regularly to the past null infinity, thus there exist many foliations by regular null hypersurfaces in the exterior region of …
We consider globally hyperbolic spacetimes with compact Cauchy surfaces in a setting compatible with the presence of a positive cosmological constant. More specifically, for 3+1 dimensional spacetimes which satisfy the null energy condition and contain a future expanding compact Cauchy surface, we establish a precise connection between the topology of the Cauchy surfaces and the occurrence of past singularities. In addition to (a refinement of) the Penrose singularity theorem, the proof makes use of some recent advances in the topology of 3-manifolds and of certain fundamental existence result…
In this paper, We prove a conjecture which states that if M is a nakedly singular future boundary or nakedly singular past boundary spacetime, then the space of null geodesics, N, is non-Hausdorff. Also, we show that every two-dimensional strongly causal spacetime M is causally simple if and only if it is null pseudoconvex. As a result, it implies the converse of the conjecture for two-dimension but there are examples that refute it for more dimensions.
We prove that an $(n+1)$-dimensional spin static vacuum with negative cosmological constant whose null infinity has a boundary admitting a non-trivial Killing spinor field is the AdS spacetime. As a consequence, we generalize previous uniqueness results by X. Wang \cite{Wa2} and by Chru{ś}ciel-Herzlich \cite{CH} and introduce, for this class of spin static vacua, some Lorentzian manifolds which are prohibited as null infinities.
A maximum principle for C^0 null hypersurfaces is obtained and used to derive a splitting theorem for spacetimes which contain null lines. As a consequence of this null splitting theorem, it is proved that an asymptotically simple vacuum (Ricci flat) spacetime which contains a null line is isometric to Minkowski space.
A particular, yet relevant, particular case of the Penrose inequality involves null shells propagating in the Minkowski spacetime. Despite previous claims in the literature, the validity of this inequality remains open. In this paper we rewrite this inequality in terms of the geometry of the surface obtained by intersecting the past null cone of the original surface S with a constant time hyperplane and the "time height" function of S over this hyperplane. We also specialize to the case when S lies in the past null cone of a point and show the validity of the corresponding inequality in any di…
The space of null geodesics of a spacetime carries a canonical contact structure which has proved to be key in the discussion of causality in spacetimes. However, not much progress has been made on its nature and not many explicit calculations for specific spacetimes can be found over the literature. We compute the spaces of null geodesics and their canonical contact structures for the manifold $\mathbb{S}^2\times\mathbb{S}^1$ equipped with the family of metrics $\{g_c = g_\circ-\frac{1}{c^2}dt^2 \}_{c\in\mathbb{N}^+}$. We obtain that these are the lens spaces $L(2c,1)$ and that the contact st…
The main topic of this paper is to show that in the 3-dimensional Minkowski spacetime, the torsion of a null curve is equal to the Schwarzian derivative of a certain function appearing in a description of the curve. As applications, we obtain descriptions of the slant helices, and null curves for which the torsion is of the form $τ=-2λs$, $s$ being the pseudo-arc parameter and $λ=\mathop{\rm constant}\not=0$.
In this paper we study null Bertrand curves in $R_{1}^{4}$ under the assumption the curve has a Cartan frame. We show that if the derivative vectors of the null Cartan curve in $R_{1}^{4}$ is linearly independent, then this curve is not a Bertrand curve. Since then the already known notion of null Bertrand curves in $R_{1}^{4}$ occurs only if the derivative vectors of the curve is linearly dependent. We will introduce an idea of Bertrand curves and abiding by this idea we bring to light under which conditions a null Cartan curve in $R_{1}^{4}$ is a Bertrand curve.
The null splitting theorem (proved in math.DG/9909158) is discussed. As an application, a uniqueness theorem for Minkowski space and for de Sitter space associated with the occurrence of null lines (inextendible globally achronal null geodesics) is presented.
Given a time function $τ$ on a spacetime $M$, we define a `null distance function', $\hat{d}_τ$, built from and closely related to the causal structure of $M$. In basic models with timelike $\nabla τ$, we show that 1) $\hat{d}_τ$ is a definite distance function, which induces the manifold topology, 2) the causal structure of $M$ is completely encoded in $\hat{d}_τ$ and $τ$. In general, $\hat{d}_τ$ is a conformally invariant pseudometric, which may be indefinite. We give an `anti-Lipschitz' condition on $τ$, which ensures that $\hat{d}_τ$ is definite, and show this condition to be satisfied whe…
In this short paper, we review recent progress on the positive mass theorem for spacelike hypersurfaces which approach to null infinity in asymptotically flat spacetimes. We use it to prove, if the functions $c(u, θ, ψ)$, $d(u, θ, ψ)$ vanish at certain retarded time in vacuum Bondi's radiating spacetimes, then the Bondi mass is nonnegative up to that time.
The classical Minkowski formula is extended to spacelike codimension-two submanifolds in spacetimes which admit "hidden symmetry" from conformal Killing-Yano two-forms. As an application, we obtain an Alexandrov type theorem for spacelike codimension-two submanifolds in a static spherically symmetric spacetime: a codimension-two submanifold with constant normalized null expansion (null mean curvature) must lie in a shear-free (umbilical) null hypersurface. These results are generalized for higher order curvature invariants. In particular, the notion of mixed higher order mean curvature is intr…
