On a smooth $n$-manifold $M$ with $n \geq 3$, we study pairs $(g,T)$ consisting of a Riemannian metric $g$ and a unit length closed vector field $T$. Motivated by how Ricci solitons generalize Einstein metrics via a distinguished vector field, we propose to generalize space forms by considering those pairs $(g,T)$ whose corresponding Lorentzian metric $g_{\scriptscriptstyle L} = g - 2T^{\flat} \otimes T^{\flat}$ has constant curvature. We show by examples that such pairs exist when $M$ is noncompact, and that complete metrics exist among them. When $M$ is compact, however, the situation is more rigid. In the compact setting, we prove that the only pairs $(g,T)$ whose corresponding Lorentzian metric $g_{\scriptscriptstyle L}$ is a space form are those where $(M,g)$ is flat and its universal covering splits isometrically as a product $\mathbb{R} \times N$. The nonexistence of compact Lorentzian spherical space forms plays a key role in our proof.
In this paper we study a semi-Riemannian submersion from Lorentzian (para)almost contact manifolds and find necessary and sufficient conditions for the characteristic vector field to be vertical or horizontal. We also obtain decomposition theorems for an anti-invariant semi-Riemannian submersion from Lorentzian (para)Sasakian manifolds onto a Lorentzian manifold.
Several characterizations of umbilic points of submanifolds in arbitrary Riemannian and Lorentzian manifolds are given. As a consequence, we obtain new characterizations of spheres in the Euclidean space and of hyperbolic spaces in the Lorentz-Minkowski space. We also prove the Lorentzian version of a classical result by Cartan.
In this paper we define and analyze singularities of discrete linear Weingarten surfaces with Weierstrass-type representations in $3$-dimensional Riemannian and Lorentzian spaceforms. In particular, we discuss singularities of discrete surfaces with non-zero constant Gaussian curvature, and parallel surfaces of discrete minimal and maximal surfaces, and discrete constant mean curvature $1$ surfaces in de Sitter $3$-space, including comparisons with different previously known definitions of such singularities.
It is proved that the holomorphic quadratic differential associated to CMC surfaces in Riemannian products $\mathbb{S}^2\times\Rr$ and $\mathbb{H}^2\times \Rr$ discovered by U. Abresch and H. Rosenberg could be obtained as a linear combination of usual Hopf differentials. Using this fact, we are able to extend it for Lorentzian products. Families of examples of helicoidal CMC surfaces on these spaces are explicitly described. We also present some characterizations of CMC rotationally invariant discs and spheres. Finally, after establish some height and area estimates, we prove the existence of…
We consider Lie groups equipped with a left-invariant cyclic Lorentzian metric. As in the Riemannian case, in terms of homogeneous structures, such metrics can be considered as different as possible from bi-invariant metrics. We show that several results concerning cyclic Riemannian metrics do not extend to their Lorentzian analogues, and obtain a full classification of three- and four-dimensional cyclic Lorentzian metrics.
The notion of $Γ$-symmetric space is a natural generalization of the classical notion of symmetric space based on $\z_2$-grading of Lie algebras. In our case, we consider homogeneous spaces $G/H$ such that the Lie algebra $\g$ of $G$ admits a $Γ$-grading where $Γ$ is a finite abelian group. In this work we study Riemannian metrics and Lorentzian metrics on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}_3$ adapted to the symmetries of a $Γ$-symmetric structure on $\mathbb{H}_3$. We prove that the classification of $\z_2^2$-symmetric Riemannian and Lorentzian metrics on $\mathbb{H}_3$ corresponds to the class…
It is known that all left-invariant pseudo-Riemannian metrics on $H_3$ are algebraic Ricci solitons. We consider generalizations of Riemannian $H$-type, namely pseudo$H$-type and $pH$-type. We study algebraic Ricci solitons of left-invariant Lorentzian metrics on 2-step nilpotent Lie groups of both types.
The paper is devoted to metric connections with parallel skew-symmetric torsion in Lorentzian signature. This is motivated by recent progress in the Riemannian signature and by possible applications to supergravity theories. We provide a complete information about holonomy algebras, torsion and curvature of the considered connections up to the corresponding objects from the Riemannian signature. Various examples are constructed. It is shown how to construct all simply connected Lorentzian naturally reductive homogeneous spaces of arbitrary dimension from Riemannian naturally reductive homogene…
A parallel lightlike vector field on a Lorentzian manifold $X$ naturally defines a foliation $\mathcal{F}$ of codimension one. If either all leaves of $\mathcal{F}$ are compact or $X$ itself is compact admitting a compact leaf and the (transverse) Ricci curvature is non-negative then a Bochner type argument implies that the first Betti number of $X$ is bounded by $1 \leq b_{1} \leq \dim X$ if $X$ is compact and $0 \leq b_{1} \leq \dim X -1$ otherwise. We show that these bounds are optimal and depending on the holonomy of $X$ we obtain further results. Finally, we classify the holonomy represen…
We study sub-Riemannian and sub-Lorentzian geometry on the Lie group $\SU(1,1)$ and on its universal cover $\CSU(1,1)$. In the sub-Riemannian case we find the distance function and completely describe sub-Riemannian geodesics on both $\SU(1,1)$ and $\CSU(1,1)$, connecting two fixed points. In particular, we prove that there is a strong connection between the conjugate loci and the number of geodesics. In the sub-Lorentzian case, we describe the geodesics connecting two points on $\CSU(1,1)$, and compare them with Lorentzian ones. It turns out that the reachable sets for Lorentzian and sub-Lore…
In this work, we are interested in a non symmetric homogeneous space, namely $SO(2m)/Sp(m)$. We show that this space admits a structure of $Z_2^2$-symmetric space. We describe all the non degenerated metrics and classify the Riemannian and Lorentzian ones.
We give a spinorial characterization of isometrically immersed surfaces of arbitrary signature into 3-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian space forms. For Lorentzian surfaces, this generalizes a recent work of the first author in $\mathbb{R}^{2,1}$ to other Lorentzian space forms. We also characterize immersions of Riemannian surfaces in these spaces. From this we can deduce analogous results for timelike immersions of Lorentzian surfaces in space forms of corresponding signature, as well as for spacelike and timelike immersions of surfaces of signature (0,2), hence achieving a complete spinorial de…
Given a null hypersurface $L$ of a Lorentzian manifold, we construct a Riemannian metric $\widetilde{g}$ on it from a fixed transverse vector field $ζ$. We study the relationship between the ambient Lorentzian manifold, the Riemannian manifold $(L,\widetilde{g})$ and the vector field $ζ$. As an application, we prove some new results on null hypersurfaces, as well as known ones, using Riemannian techniques.
It is commonly known that in Riemannian and sub-Riemannian Geometry, the metric tensor on a manifold defines a distance function. In Lorentzian Geometry, instead of a distance function it provides causal relations and the Lorentzian time-separation function. Both lead to the definition of the Alexandrov topology, which is linked to the property of strong causality of a space-time. We studied three possible ways to define the Alexandrov topology on sub-Lorentzian manifolds, which usually give different topologies, but agree in the Lorentzian case. We investigated their relationships to each oth…
We give some properties of semi-symmetric pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. These are foliated manifolds and for the Lorentzian metric, the Ricci operator has only real eigenvalues.
We establish the submaximal symmetry dimension for Riemannian and Lorentzian conformal structures. The proof is based on enumerating all subalgebras of orthogonal Lie algebras of sufficiently large dimension and verifying if they stabilize a non-zero Weyl tensor up to scale. Our main technical tools include Dynkin's classification of maximal subalgebras in complex simple Lie algebras, a theorem of Mostow, and Kostant's Bott-Borel-Weil theorem.
We obtain Harnack estimates for a class of curvature flows in Riemannian manifolds of constant non-negative sectional curvature as well as in the Lorentzian Minkowski and de Sitter spaces. Furthermore, we prove a Harnack estimate with a bonus term for mean curvature flow in locally symmetric Riemannian Einstein manifold of non-negative sectional curvature. Using a concept of "duality" for strictly convex hypersurfaces, we also obtain a new type of inequalities, so-called "pseudo"-Harnack inequalities, for expanding flows in the sphere and in the hyperbolic space.
It is explained how to find the de~Rham decomposition of a Riemannian manifold and the Wu decomposition of a Lorentzian manifold. For that it is enough to find parallel symmetric bilinear forms on the manifold, and do some linear algebra. This result will allow to compute the connected holonomy group of an arbitrary Riemannian or Lorentzian manifold.
We prove that the Cauchy problem for parallel null vector fields on smooth Lorentzian manifolds is well posed. The proof is based on the derivation and analysis of suitable hyperbolic evolution equations given in terms of the Ricci tensor and other geometric objects. Moreover, we classify Riemannian manifolds satisfying the constraint conditions for this Cauchy problem. It is then possible to characterise certain holonomy reductions of globally hyperbolic manifolds with parallel null vector in terms of flow equations for Riemannian special holonomy metrics. For exceptional holonomy groups thes…
We call a connected Lie group endowed with a left-invariant Lorentzian flat metric Lorentzian flat Lie group. In this Note, we determine all Lorentzian flat Lie groups admitting a timelike left-invariant Killing vector field. We show that these Lie groups are 2-solvable and unimodular and hence geodesically complete. Moreover, we show that a Lorentzian flat Lie group $(\mathrm{G},μ)$ admits a timelike left-invariant Killing vector field if and only if $\mathrm{G}$ admits a left-invariant Riemannian metric which has the same Levi-Civita connection of $μ$. Finally, we give an useful characteriza…
In this paper we provide a family of algebraic space-like surfaces in the three dimensional anti de Sitter space that shows that this Lorentzian manifold admits algebraic maximal examples of any order. Then, we classify all the space-like order two algebraic maximal hypersurfaces in the anti de Sitter $N$-dimensional space. Finally, we provide two families of examples of Lorentzian order two algebraic zero mean curvature in the de Sitter space.
The strong maximum principle is proved to hold for weak (in the sense of support functions) sub- and super-solutions to a class of quasi-linear elliptic equations that includes the mean curvature equation for $C^0$ spacelike hypersurfaces in a Lorentzian manifold. As one application a Lorentzian warped product splitting theorem is given.
The local classification of conformally flat Lorentzian manifolds with special holonomy groups is obtained. The corresponding local metrics are certain extensions of Riemannian spaces of constant sectional curvature to Walker metrics.
The notion of $Γ$-symmetric space is a natural generalization of the classical notion of symmetric space based on $\Z_2$-grading of Lie algebras. In our case, we consider homogeneous spaces $G/H$ such that the Lie algebra $\g$ of $G$ admits a $Γ$-grading where $Γ$ is a finite abelian group. In this work we study Riemannian metrics and Lorentzian metrics on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}_3$ adapted to the symmetries of a $Γ$-symmetric structure on $\mathbb{H}_3$. We prove that the classification of $\z$-symmetric Riemannian and Lorentzian metrics on $\mathbb{H}_3$ corresponds to the classific…
In this paper, we introduce the notion of a quasi-biharmonic submanifold in a pseudo-Riemannian manifold and classify quasi-biharmonic marginally trapped Lagrangian surfaces in Lorentzian complex space forms.
The main result of this paper is that a Lorentzian manifold is locally conformally equivalent to a manifold with recurrent lightlike vector field and totally isotropic Ricci tensor if and only if its conformal tractor holonomy admits a 2-dimensional totally isotropic invariant subspace. Furthermore, for semi-Riemannian manifolds of arbitrary signature we prove that the conformal holonomy algebra of a $C$-space is a Berger algebra. For Ricci-flat spaces we show how the conformal holonomy can be obtained by the holonomy of the ambient metric and get results for Riemannian manifolds and plane wav…
The Oscillator Groups,$\G_λ,$ are the only solvable, non commutative, simply connected Lie groups to admit a Lorentzian bi-invariant metric. For these groups, we give sufficient conditions for a left-invariant pseudo-Riemannian metric to be complete, we determine the group of isometries, we exhibit a left-invariant affine structure and prove that it is not Lorentzian. As an application, we provide new examples of compact pseudo-Riemannian (sometimes Lorentzian) locally symmetric, occasionally affine, manifolds, complete or incomplete.
Helfer in [Pacific J. Math. 164/2 (1994), p. 321--350] was the first to produce an example of a spacelike Lorentzian geodesic with a continuum of conjugate points. In this paper we show the following result: given an interval $[a,b]$ of $IR$ and any closed subset $F$ of $IR$ contained in $]a,b]$, then there exists a Lorentzian manifold $(M,g)$ and a spacelike geodesic $γ:[a,b]\to M$ such that $γ(t)$ is conjugate to $γ(a)$ along $γ$ iff $t\in F$.
Sub-Riemannian Geometry is proved to play an important role in many applications, e.g., Mathematical Physics and Control Theory. The simplest example of sub-Riemannian structure is provided by the 3-D Heisenberg group. Sub-Riemannian Geometry enjoys major differences from the Riemannian being a generalisation of the latter at the same time, e.g., geodesics are not unique and may be singular, the Hausdorff dimension is larger than the manifold topological dimension. There exists a large amount of literature developing sub-Riemannian Geometry. However, very few is known about its natural extensi…
Infinitely many new examples of compact Lorentzian surfaces without conjugate points are given. Further, we study the existence and the stability of this property among Lorentzian metrics with a Killing field. We obtain a new obstruction and prove that the Clifton- Pohl torus and some of our examples are as stable as possible. This shows that in constrast with the Riemannian Hopf theorem, the absence of conjugate points in the Lorentzian setting is neither "special" nor rigid.
We call the Lie algebra of a Lie group with a left invariant pseudo-Riemannian flat metric pseudo-Riemannian flat Lie algebra. We give a new proof of a classical result of Milnor on Riemannian flat Lie algebras. We reduce the study of Lorentzian flat Lie algebras to those with trivial center or those with degenerate center. We show that the double extension process can be used to construct all Lorentzian flat Lie algebras with degenerate center generalizing a result of Aubert-Medina on Lorentzian flat nilpotent Lie algebras. Finally, we give the list of Lorentzian flat Lie algebras with degene…
Given a Lorentzian manifold $(M,g_L)$ and a timelike unitary vector field $E$, we can construct the Riemannian metric $g_R=g_L+2ω\otimesω$, being $ω$ the metrically equivalent one form to $E$. We relate the curvature of both metrics, especially in the case of $E$ being Killing or closed, and we use the relations obtained to give some results about $(M,g_L)$.
We present in this paper a $C^1$-metric on an open neighbourhood of the origin in $\RR^{5}$. The metric is of Lorentzian signature $(1,4)$ and admits a solution to the twistor equation for spinors with a unique isolated zero at the origin. The metric is not conformally flat in any neighbourhood of the origin. The construction is based on the Eguchi-Hanson metric with parallel spinors on Riemannian 4-space.
We find a spinorial representation of a Riemannian or Lorentzian surface in a Lorentzian homogeneous space of dimension $3.$ We in particular obtain a representation theorem for surfaces in the $\mathbb{L}(κ,τ)$ spaces. We then recover the Calabi correspondence between minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$ and maximal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}_1^3$, and obtain a new Lawson type correspondence between CMC surfaces in $\mathbb{R}_1^3$ and in the 3-dimensional pseudo-hyperbolic space $\mathbb{H}_1^{3}.$
Similar to the definition of Dupin hypersurface in Riemannian space forms, we define the spacelike Dupin hypersurface in Lorentzian space forms. As conformal invariant objects, spacelike Dupin hypersurfaces are studied in this paper using the framework of conformal geometry. Further we classify the spacelike Dupin hypersurfaces with constant Möbius curvatures, which are the partition ratio of the principal curvatures of the spacelike Dupin hypersurface.
In this article, we get classification theorems for a Ricci soliton on the pseudo-Riemannian hypersurface of the Minkowski space $\mathbb{E}^4_1$ taking the potential vector field as the tangent component of the position vector of the pseudo-Riemannian hypersurface, denoted by $(M,g,{\bf x}^T,λ)$ in both Riemannian and Lorentzian settings. First, we obtain the necessary and sufficient condition that a pseudo-Riemannian hypersurface $(M,g)$ in $\mathbb{E}^4_1$ admits a Ricci soliton $(M,g,{\bf x}^T,λ)$. In each of the form of the shape operator of a pseudo-Riemannian hypersurface, we obtain cha…
We present an approach to solvable pseudo-Riemannian symmetric spaces based on papers of M.Cahen, M.Parker and N.Wallach. Thereby we reproduce the classification of solvable symmetric triples of Lorentzian signature $(1,n-1)$ and complete the case of signature $(2,n-2)$. Moreover we discuss the topology of non-simply-connected symmetric spaces.
On a compact globally hyperbolic Lorentzian spin manifold with smooth spacelike Cauchy boundary the (hyperbolic) Dirac operator is known to be Fredholm when Atiyah-Patodi-Singer boundary conditions are imposed. In this paper we investigate to what extent these boundary conditions can be replaced by more general ones and how the index then changes. There are some differences to the classical case of the elliptic Dirac operator on a Riemannian manifold with boundary.
A Lorentzian flat Lie group is a Lie group $G$ with a flat left invariant metric $μ$ with signature $(1,n-1)=(-,+,\ldots,+)$. The Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}=T_eG$ of $G$ endowed with $\langle\;,\;\rangle=μ(e)$ is called flat Lorentzian Lie algebra. It is known that the metric of a flat Lorentzian Lie group is geodesically complete if and only if its Lie algebra is unimodular. In this paper, we characterise nonunimodular Lorentzian flat Lie algebras as double extensions (in the sense of Aubert-Medina \cite{Aub-Med}) of Riemannian flat Lie algebras. As application of this result, we give all nonu…
We prove several geometric theorems using tools from the theory of convex optimization. In the Riemannian setting, we prove the max flow-min cut theorem for boundary regions, applied recently to develop a "bit-thread" interpretation of holographic entanglement entropies. We also prove various properties of the max flow and min cut, including respective nesting properties. In the Lorentzian setting, we prove the analogous min flow-max cut theorem, which states that the volume of a maximal slice equals the flux of a minimal flow, where a flow is defined as a divergenceless timelike vector field …
In this paper we study weakly irreducible holonomy representations of the normal connection of a spacelike submanifold in a pseudo-Riemannian space from. We associate screen representations to weakly irreducible normal holonomy groups and classify the screen representations having the Borel-Lichnérowicz property. In particular, we derive a classification of Lorentzian normal holonomy representations.
For each connected and simply connected three-dimensional non-unimodular Lie group, we classify the left invariant Lorentzian metrics up to automorphism, and study the extent to which curvature can be altered by a change of metric. Thereby we obtain the Ricci operator, the scalar curvature, and the sectional curvatures as functions of left invariant Lorentzian metrics on the three-dimensional non-unimodular Lie groups. Our study is a continuation and extension of the previous studies done in \cite{HL2009_MN} for Riemannian metrics on three-dimensional Lie groups and in \cite{BC} for Lorentzian…
Extended recurrent pseudo-Riemannian manifolds were introduced by Mileva Prvanovic'. We reconsider her work in the light of recent results and show that the manifold is conformally flat, and it is a space of quasi-constant curvature. We also show that an extended recurrent Lorentzian manifold, with time-like associated covector, is a perfect fluid Robertson-Walker space-time. We obtain the equation of state; in n = 4 and if the scalar curvature is zero, a model for incoherent radiation is obtained.
We consider a pseudo-Riemannian metric that changes signature along a smooth curve on a surface, called the discriminant curve. The discriminant curve separates the surface locally into a Riemannian and a Lorentzian domain. We study the local behaviour and properties of geodesics at a point on the discriminant where the isotropic direction is tangent to the discriminant curve.
