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 type Gauss map, being invariant under a one-parameter group of ambient isometries, being isotropic, being pseudo-umbilical. Finally, we provide examples of constant Gaussian curvature marginally trapped surfaces and state some open questions.
The purpose of the present article is to study and characterize sev- eral types of symmetries of generalized Robertson-Walker space-times. Con- formal vector fields, curvature and Ricci collineations are studied. Many im- plications for existence of these symmetries on generalied Robertson-Walker spacetimes are obtained. Finally, Ricci solitons on generalized Robertson- Walker space-times admitting conformal vector fields are investigated.
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for warped product manifolds with 1-dimensional base, and in particular, for generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes, to satisfy some generalized Einstein metric condition. We also construct suitable examples of such manifolds. They are quasi-Einstein or not.
Spacelike surfaces in Generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes whose mean curvature function satisfies a natural nonlinear inequality are analyzed. Several uniqueness and nonexistence results for such compact spacelike surfaces are proved. In the nonparametric case, new Calabi-Bernstein type problems are solved as a consequence.
We show that there is a correspondence between totally umbilic null hypersurfaces in generalized Robertson-Walker spaces and twisted decompositions of the fibre. This allows us to prove that nullcones are the unique totally umbilic null hypersurfaces in the closed Friedmann Cosmological model. We also apply this kind of ideas to static spaces, in particular to Reissner-Nordström and Schwarzschild exterior spacetimes.
In this work we study maximal hypersurfaces in spatially open Generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes with Ricci-flat fiber by means of a generalized maximum principle. In particular, under natural geometric and physical assumptions we provide new uniqueness and non-existence results for complete maximal hypersurfaces in spatially open Robertson-Walker spacetimes with flat fiber. Moreover, our results are applied to relevant spacetimes as the steady state spacetime, Einstein-de Sitter spacetime and radiation models.
In this paper, we prove a Kastler-Kalau-Walze type theorem for 4-dimensional and 6-dimensional spin manifolds with boundary associated with the conformal Robertson-Walker metric. And we give two kinds of operator theoretic explanations of the gravitational action for boundary in the case of 4-dimensional manifolds with flat boundary. In particular, for 6-dimensional spin manifolds with boundary with the conformal Robertson-Walker metric, we obtain the noncommutative residue of the composition of $π^+D^{-1}$ and $π^+D^{-3}$ is proportional to the Einstein-Hilbert action for manifolds with bound…
We study constant mean curvature spacelike hypersurfaces in generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes which are spatially parabolic covered (i.e. its fiber F is a (non- compact) complete Riemannian manifold whose universal covering is parabolic) and satisfy the null convergence condition. In particular, we provide several rigidity results under appro- priate mathematical and physical assumptions. We pay special attention to the case where the GRW spacetime is Einstein. As an application, some Calabi-Bernstein type results are given.
In this paper we analyze the problem of uniqueness for spacelike hypersurfaces with constant higher order mean curvature in generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes. We consider first the case of compact spacelike hypersurfaces, completing some previous results given in [2]. We next extend these results to the complete noncompact case. In that case, our approach is based on the use of a generalized version of the Omori-Yau maximum principle for trace type differential operators, recently given in [3].
A generalized Robertson-Walker spacetime is the warped product with base an open interval of the real line endowed with the opposite of its metric and base any Riemannian manifold. The family of generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes widely extends the one of classical Robertson-Walker spacetimes. In this article we prove a very simple characterization of generalized Robertson-Walker spacetimes; namely, a Lorentzian manifold is a generalized Robertson-Walker spacetime if and only if it admits a timelike concircular vector field.
Our purpose in this paper is to apply some maximum principles in order to study the rigidity of complete spacelike hypersurfaces immersed in a spatially weighted generalized Robertson-Walker (GRW) spacetime, which is supposed to obey the so called strong null convergence condition. Under natural constraints on the weight function and on the f-mean curvature, we establish sufficient conditions to guarantee that such a hypersurface must be a slice of the ambient space. In this setting, we also obtain new Calabi-Bernstein type results concerning entire graphs in a spatially weighted GRW spacetime…
Several uniqueness results for non-compact complete stationary spacelike surfaces in an $n(\geq 3)$-dimensional Generalized Robertson Walker spacetime are obtained. In order to do that, we assume a natural inequality involving the Gauss curvature of the surface, the restrictions of the warping function and the sectional curvature of the fiber to the surface. This inequality gives the parabolicity of the surface. Using this property, a distinguished non-negative superharmonic function on the surface is shown to be constant, which implies that the stationary spacelike surface must be totally geo…
Generalized Robertson-Walker (GRW) spaces constitute a quite important family in Lorentzian geometry, and it is an interesting question to know whether a Lorentzian manifold can be decomposed in such a way. It is well known that the existence of a suitable vector field guaranties the local decomposition of the manifold. In this paper, we give conditions on the curvature which ensure a global decomposition and apply them to several situations where local decomposition appears naturally. We also study the uniqueness question, obtaining that the de Sitter spaces are the only non trivial complete …
A characterization of the foliation by spacelike slices of an $(n+1)$-dimensional spatially closed Generalized Robertson-Walker spacetime is given by means of studying a natural mean curvature type equation on spacelike graphs. Under some natural assumptions, of physical or geometric nature, all the entire solutions of such an equation are obtained. In particular, the case of entire spacelike graphs in de Sitter spacetime is faced and completely solved by means of a new application of a known integral formula.
We use a locally constrained mean curvature flow to prove the isoperimetric inequality for spacelike domains in generalized Robertson-Walker spaces satisfying the null convergence condition.
We prove the longtime existence for the mean curvature flow problem with a perpendicular Neumann boundary condition in a Generalized Robertson Walker (GRW) spacetime that obeys the null convergence condition. In addition, we prove that the metric of such a solution is conformal to the one of the leaf of the GRW in asymptotic time. Furthermore, if the initial hypersurface is mean convex, then the evolving hypersurfaces remain mean convex during the flow.
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
We show that, when considering the scaling factor as an affine variable, the coefficients of the asymptotic expansion of the spectral action on a (Euclidean) Robertson-Walker spacetime are periods of mixed Tate motives, involving relative motives of complements of unions of hyperplanes and quadric hypersurfaces and divisors given by unions of coordinate hyperplanes.
In this paper, under natural geometric and physical assumptions we provide new uniqueness and non-existence results for complete maximal hypersurfaces in spatially open Robertson-Walker spacetimes whose fiber is flat. Moreover, our results are applied to relevant spacetimes as the steady state spacetime, Einstein-de Sitter spacetime and radiation models.
In (Phys. Rev. D 62, 081501, 2000) we proposed a unified approach to description of continuous and discrete spacetime based on nonassociative geometry and described nonassociative smooth and discrete de Sitter models. In our paper we give the description of nonassociative Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime.
We determine the long-time asymptotic behavior of a relativistic diffusion taking values in the unitary tangent bundle of a Robertson-Walker space-time. We prove in particular that when approaching the explosion time of the diffusion, its projection on the base manifold almost surely converges to a random point of the causal boundary and we also describe the behavior of the tangent vector in the neighborhood of this limiting point.
A perfect-fluid space-time of dimension n>3 with 1) irrotational velocity vector field, 2) null divergence of the Weyl tensor, is a generalised Robertson-Walker space-time with Einstein fiber. Condition 1) is verified whenever pressure and energy density are related by an equation of state. The contraction of the Weyl tensor with the velocity vector field is zero. Conversely, a generalized Robertson-Walker space-time with null divergence of the Weyl tensor is a perfect-fluid space-time.
We prove theorems about the Ricci and the Weyl tensors on generalized Robertson-Walker space-times of dimension $n\ge 3$. In particular, we show that the concircular vector introduced by Chen decomposes the Ricci tensor as a perfect fluid term plus a term linear in the contracted Weyl tensor. The Weyl tensor is harmonic if and only if it is annihilated by Chen's vector, and any of the two conditions is necessary and sufficient for the GRW space-time to be a quasi-Einstein (perfect fluid) manifold. Finally, the general structure of the Riemann tensor for Robertson-Walker space-times is given, i…
We give new necessary and sufficient conditions on the Weyl tensor for generalized Robertson-Walker (GRW) space-times to be perfect-fluid space-times. For GRW space-times, we determine the form of the Ricci tensor in all the O(n)-invariant subspaces provided by Gray's decomposition of the gradient of the Ricci tensor. In all but one, the Ricci tensor is Einstein or has the form of perfect fluid. We discuss the corresponding equations of state that result from the Einstein equation in dimension 4, where perfect-fluid GRW space-times are Robertson-Walker.
We consider the inverse mean curvature flow in Robertson-Walker spacetimes that satisfy the Einstein equations and have a big crunch singularity and prove that under natural conditions the rescaled inverse mean curvature flow provides a smooth transition from big crunch to big bang. We also construct an example showing that in general the transition flow is only of class $C^3$.
We show that the Big Bang singularity of the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker model does not raise major problems to General Relativity. We prove a theorem showing that the Einstein equation can be written in a non-singular form, which allows the extension of the spacetime before the Big Bang. The physical interpretation of the fields used is discussed. These results follow from our research on singular semi-Riemannian geometry and singular General Relativity.
The integral of the energy density function $\mathfrak m$ of a closed Robertson-Walker (RW) spacetime with source a perfect fluid and cosmological constant $Λ$ gives rise to an action functional on the space of scale functions of RW spacetime metrics. This paper studies closed RW spacetimes which are critical for this functional, subject to volume-preserving variations (critical RW spacetimes). A complete classification of critical RW spacetimes is given and explicit solutions in terms of Weierstrass elliptic functions and their degenerate forms are computed. The standard energy conditions (we…
In this paper we study the problem of uniqueness for spacelike hypersurfaces with constant higher order mean curvature in generalized Robertson-Walker (GRW) spacetimes. In particular, we consider the following question: Under what conditions must a compact spacelike hypersurface with constant higher order mean curvature in a spatially closed GRW spacetime be a spacelike slice? We prove that this happens, esentially, under the so called convergence condition. Our approach is based on the use of the Newton transformations (and their associated differential operators) and the Minkowski formulae f…
Einstein's equation, in its standard form, breaks down at the Big Bang singularity. A new version, equivalent to Einstein's whenever the latter is defined, but applicable in wider situations, is proposed. The new equation remains smooth at the Big Bang singularity of the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker model. It is a tensor equation defined in terms of the Ricci part of the Riemann curvature. It is obtained by taking the Kulkarni-Nomizu product between Einstein's equation and the metric tensor.
We study Einstein's equation in $(m+n)D$ and $(1+n)D$ warped spaces $(\bar{M},\bar{g})$ and classify all such spaces satisfying Einstein equations $\bar{G}=-\barΛ\bar{g}$. We show that the warping function not only can determine the cosmological constant $\barΛ$ but also it can determine the cosmological constant $Λ$ appearing in the induced Einstein equations ${G}=-Λ{h}$ on $(M_2, h)$. Moreover, we discuss on the origin of the $4D$ cosmological constant as an emergent effect of higher dimensional warped spaces.
We consider open globally hyperbolic spacetimes $N$ of dimension $n+1$, $n\ge 3$, which are spatially asymptotic to a Robertson-Walker spacetime or an open Friedmann universe with spatial curvature $\tildeκ= 0,-1$ and prove, under reasonable assumptions, that there exists a unique foliation by hypersurfaces of constant mean curvature and that the mean curvature function $τ$ is a smooth time function if $N$ is smooth. Moreover, among the Friedmann universes which satisfy the necessary conditions are those that reflect the present assumptions of the development of the universe.
