Pseudo-timelike loops in signature changing semi-Riemannian manifolds with a transverse radical
University of Zurich（苏黎世大学）；Yale University（耶鲁大学）；Technical University Berlin（柏林工业大学）；Wilhelm Foerster Observatory Berlin（柏林威廉·福斯特天文台）
N. E. Rieger, W. Hasse
备注：
Published in "Results in Physics"; this version corresponds to the final manuscript submitted to "Results in Physics". The authors thank the reviewers for their insightful comments and critique, which have helped to refine and improve this article. 36 pages, 8 figures
In 1983, Hartle and Hawking proposed the no-boundary proposal, suggesting that the universe has no beginning in the sense of a spacetime singularity or boundary. Nevertheless, there is an origin of time. Mathematically, this involves signature-type changing manifolds in which a Riemannian region smoothly transitions to a Lorentzian region across the hypersurface $\mathcal{H}$ where time begins.
We develop a coherent framework for signature changing manifolds with a degenerate yet smooth metric. Established Lorentzian tools and results are then adapted to this setting, and new definitions are introduced that carry unforeseen causal implications. A noteworthy consequence is the presence of locally time-reversing loops through every point on the hypersurface. Imposing global hyperbolicity on the Lorentzian region, we prove that for every point $p \in M$ there exists a pseudo-timelike loop self-intersecting at $p$. Equivalently, $M$ always admits a closed pseudo-timelike path around which the time direction reverses, preventing any consistent distinction between future- and past-directed vectors. To an observer near $\mathcal{H}$, such loops may appear as the creation of a particle-antiparticle pair at two distinct points.
We show that isothermic surfaces and S-Willmore surfaces are also the solutions to the corresponding Blaschke's problem for both spacelike and timelike surfaces in pseudo-Riemannian space forms. For timelike surfaces both Willmore and isothermic, we obtain a description by minimal surfaces similar to the classical results of Thomsen.
The basic theory on the conformal geometry of timelike surfaces in pseudo-Riemannian space forms is introduced, which is parallel to the classical framework of Burstall etc. for spacelike surfaces. Then we provide a discussion on the transforms of timelike $(\pm)-$isothermic surfaces (or real isothermic, complex isothermic surfaces), including $c-$ polar transforms, Darboux transforms and spectral transforms. The first main result is that $c-$polar transforms preserve timelike $(\pm)-$isothermic surfaces, which are generalizations of the classical Christoffel transforms. The next main result i…
Let s be at least 2. We construct Ricci flat pseudo-Riemannian manifolds of signature (2s,s) which are not locally homogeneous but whose curvature tensors never the less exhibit a number of important symmetry properties. They are curvature homogeneous; their curvature tensor is modeled on that of a local symmetric space. They are spacelike Jordan Osserman with a Jacobi operator which is nilpotent of order 3; they are not timelike Jordan Osserman. They are k-spacelike higher order Jordan Osserman for $2\le k\le s$; they are k-timelike higher order Jordan Osserman for $s+2\le k\le 2s$, and they …
On a Riemannian or a semi-Riemannian manifold, the metric determines invariants like the Levi-Civita connection and the Riemann curvature. If the metric becomes degenerate (as in singular semi-Riemannian geometry), these constructions no longer work, because they are based on the inverse of the metric, and on related operations like the contraction between covariant indices. In this article we develop the geometry of singular semi-Riemannian manifolds. First, we introduce an invariant and canonical contraction between covariant indices, applicable even for degenerate metrics. This contraction …
Pseudo-Riemannian manifolds of balanced signature which are both spacelike and timelike Jordan Osserman nilpotent of order 2 and of order 3 have been constructed previously. In this short note, we shall construct pseudo-Riemannian manifolds of signature (2s,s) for any s (which is at least 2) which are spacelike Jordan Osserman nilpotent of order 3 but which are not timelike Jordan Osserman. Our example and techniques are quite different from known previously both in that they are not in neutral signature and that the manifolds constructed will be spacelike but not timelike Jordan Osserman.
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…
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…
Conditions for the existence of closed geodesics is a classic, much-studied subject in Riemannian geometry, with many beautiful results and powerful techniques. However, many of the techniques that work so well in that context are far less effective in Lorentzian geometry. In revisiting this problem here, we introduce the notion of timelike geodesic homotopy, a restriction to geodesics of the more standard timelike homotopy (also known as $t$-homotopy) of timelike loops on Lorentzian manifolds. This tool is combined with a local shortening/stretching of length argument to provide a number of n…
We introduce a class of half lightlike submanifolds of almost contact B-metric manifolds and prove that such submanifolds are semi-Riemannian with respect to the associated B-metric. Object of investigations are also minimal of the considered submanifolds and a non-trivial example for them is given.
A celebrated result due to Poincaré affirms that a closed non-degenerate minimizing geodesic $γ$ on an oriented Riemannian surface is hyperbolic. Starting from this classical theorem, our first main result is a general instability criterion for timelike and spacelike closed semi-Riemannian geodesics on a (non)oriented manifold. A key role is played by the spectral index, a new topological invariant that we define through the spectral flow (being the Morse index truly infinite) of a path of selfadjoint Fredholm operators. A major step in the proof of this result is a em new spectral flow formul…
We prove Wadsley's theorem for foliations by closed non-lightlike geodesics. As an application we show that every pseudo-Riemannian and non-Riemannian 2-mainfold, all of whose time- or spacelike geodesics are closed, is diffeomorphic to $S^1\times \R$. Further we show that every pseudo-Riemannian 2-manifold with index 1 contains a non-closed timelike or spacelike geodesic.
The computation of the index of the Hessian of the action functional in semi-Riemannian geometry at geodesics with two variable endpoints is reduced to the case of a fixed final endpoint. Using this observation, we give an elementary proof of the Morse Index Theorem for Riemannian geodesics with two variable endpoints, in the spirit of the original Morse's proof. This approach reduces substantially the effort required in the proofs of the Theorem given in previous articles on the subject. Exactly the same argument works also in the case of timelike geodesics between two submanifolds of a Loren…
The present paper is a continuation of our previous work, where a class of half lightlike submanifolds of almost contact B-metric manifolds was introduced. We study curvature properties of totally and screen totally umbilical such submanifolds as well as of the corresponding semi-Riemannian submanifolds with respect to the associated B-metric.
We investigate under which assumptions an orientable pseudo-Riemannian geodesic foliations by circles is generated by an $S^1$-action. We construct examples showing that, contrary to the Riemannian case, it is not always true. However, we prove that such an action always exists when the foliation does not contain lightlike leaves, i.e. a pseudo-Riemannian Wadsley's Theorem. As an application, we show that every Lorentzian surface all of whose spacelike/timelike geodesics are closed, is finitely covered by $S^1\times \R$. It follows that every Lorentzian surface contains a non-closed geodesic.
In this paper we generalize harmonic maps and morphisms to the \emph{degenerate semi-Riemannian category}, in the case when the manifolds $M$ and $N$ are \emph{stationary} and the map $ϕ:M\to N$ is \emph{radical-preserving}. We characterize geometrically the notion of \emph{(generalized) horizontal (weak) conformality} and we obtain a characterization for (generalized) harmonic morphisms in terms of (generalized) harmonic maps.
This paper explores the relation between convex functions and the geometry of space-times and semi-Riemannian manifolds (an investigation initiated by Gibbons-Ishibashi). Specifically, we study geodesic connectedness. We give geometric-topological proofs of geodesic connectedness for classes of space-times to which known methods do not apply. For instance: A null-disprisoning space-time is geodesically connected if it supports a proper, nonnegative strictly convex function whose critical set is a point. Timelike strictly convex hypersurfaces of Minkowski space are geodesically connected. We al…
The Golden Ratio is fascinating topic that continually generated news ideas. A Riemannian manifold endowed with a Golden Structure will be called a Golden Riemannian manifold. The main purpose of the present paper is to study the geometry of radical transversal lightlike submanifolds and transversal lightlike submanifolds of Golden Semi-Riemannian manifolds. We investigate the geometry of distributions and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the induced connection on these manifolds to be metric connection.
We study focal points and Maslov index of a horizontal geodesic $γ:I\to M$ in the total space of a semi-Riemannian submersion $π:M\to B$ by determining an explicit relation with the corresponding objects along the projected geodesic $π\circγ:I\to B$ in the base space. We use this result to calculate the focal Maslov index of a (spacelike) geodesic in a stationary space-time which is orthogonal to a timelike Killing vector field.
Let $(M,g)$ be a complete connected $n$-dimensional Riemannian spin manifold without boundary such that the scalar curvature satisfies $R_g\geq -n(n-1)$ and $\mathcal{E}\subset M$ be an asymptotically hyperbolic end, we prove that the mass functional of the end $\mathcal{E}$ is timelike future-directed or zero. Moreover, it vanishes if and only if $(M,g)$ is isometric to the hyperbolic space. We also consider the mass of an asymptotically hyperbolic manifold with compact boundary, we prove the mass is timelike future-directed if the mean curvature of the boundary is bounded from below by a fun…
This paper presents an investigation of the relation between some positivity of the curvature and the finiteness of fundamental groups in semi-Riemannian geometry. We consider semi-Riemannian submersions $π: (E, g) \rightarrow (B, -g_{B}) $ under the condition with $(B, g_{B})$ Riemannian, the fiber closed Riemannian, and the horizontal distribution integrable. Then we prove that, if the lightlike geodesically complete or timelike geodesically complete semi-Riemannian manifold $E$ has some positivity of curvature, then the fundamental group of the fiber is finite. Moreover we construct an exam…
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…
The Metallic Ratio is fascinating topic that continually generated news ideas. A Riemannian manifold endowed with a Metallic structure will be called a Metallic Riemannian manifold. The main purpose of the present paper is to study the geometry of transversal lightlike submanifolds and radical transversal lightlike submanifolds and of Metallic Semi-Riemannian manifolds. We investigate the geometry of distributions and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the induced connection on these manifolds to be metric connection. We also obtain characterization of transversal lightlike submani…
The main purpose of the present paper is to study the geometry of screen transversal lightlike submanifolds and radical screen transversal lightlike submanifolds and screen transversal anti-invariant lightlike submanifolds of Golden Semi-Riemannian manifolds. We investigate the geometry of distributions and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the induced connection on these manifolds to be metric connection. We also obtain characterization of screen transversal anti-invariant lightlike submanifolds of Golden Semi- Riemannian manifolds. Finally, we give two examples.
Given a Riemannian manifold M and a hypersurface H in M, it is well known that infinitesimal convexity on a neighborhood of a point in H implies local convexity. We show in this note that the same result holds in a semi-Riemannian manifold. We make some remarks for the case when only timelike, null or spacelike geodesics are involved. The notion of geometric convexity is also reviewed and some applications to geodesic connectedness of an open subset of a Lorentzian manifold are given.
On a (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold (M,g), some fields of endomorphisms i.e. sections of End(TM) may be parallel for g. They form an associative algebra A, which is also the commutant of the holonomy group of g. As any associative algebra, A is the sum of its radical and of a semi-simple algebra S. We show in arXiv:1402.6642 that S may be of eight different types, including the generic type S=R.Id, and the Kähler and hyperkähler types where S is respectively isomorphic to the complex field C or to the quaternions H. We show here that for any self adjoint nilpotent element N of the commutant of s…
In this study, we give definitions and characterizations of eikonal slant helices, eikonal Darboux helices and non-normed eikonal Darboux helices in 3-dimensional pseudo- Riemannian manifold M . We show that every eikonal slant helix is also an eikonal Darboux helix for timelike and spacelike curves. Furthermore, we obtain that if the non-null curve a is a non-normed eikonal Darboux helix, then a is an eikonal slant helix if and only if 2 2 e 3k +e1t = constant, where k and t are curvature and torsion of a, respectively. Finally, we define null-eikonal helices, slant helices and Darboux helice…
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 …
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…
A semi-Riemannian manifold is said to satisfy $R\ge K$ (or $R\le K$) if spacelike sectional curvatures are $\ge K$ and timelike ones are $\le K$ (or the reverse). Such spaces are abundant, as warped product constructions show; they include, in particular, big bang Robertson-Walker spaces. By stability, there are many non-warped product examples. We prove the equivalence of this type of curvature bound with local triangle comparisons on the signed lengths of geodesics. Specifically, $R\ge K$ if and only if locally the signed length of the geodesic between two points on any geodesic triangle is …
By considering the projectivized spectrum of the Jacobi operator, we introduce the concept of projective Osserman manifold in both the affine and in the pseudo-Riemannian settings. If M is an affine projective Osserman manifold, then the modified Riemannian extension metric on the cotangent bundle is both spacelike and timelike projective Osserman. Since any rank 1 symmetric space is affine projective Osserman, this provides additional information concerning the cotangent bundle of a rank 1 Riemannian symmetric space with the modified Riemannian extension metric. We construct other examples of…
Given the class of Finsler spaces with Lorentzian signature $(M,L)$ on a manifold $M$ endowed with a timelike vector field $\mathcal{X}$ satisfying $g_{(x,y)}(\mathcal{X},\mathcal{X})<0$ at any point $(x,y)$ of the slit tangent bundle, a pseudo-Riemannian metric defined on $M$ of signature $n-1$ is associated to the fundamental tensor $g$. Furthermore, an affine, torsion free connection is associated to the Chern connection determined by $L$. The definition of the average connection does not make use of $\mathcal{X}$. Therefore, there is no direct relation between these two averaged objects.
We study the geometry of compact Lorentzian manifolds that admit a somewhere timelike Killing vector field, and whose isometry group has infinitely many connected components. Up to a finite cover, such manifolds are products (or amalgamated products) of a flat Lorentzian torus and a compact Riemannian (resp., lightlike) manifold.
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 $(M,g_L)$.
In this paper, we study the geometry of a connected oriented cmc Riemannian hypersurface $M$ of a semi-Riemannian group $G$ of Lie algebra $\mathfrak g$ and index 0 or 1. If $G$ is Riemannian and $M$ is compact and transversal to an element of $\mathfrak g$, we show that it is a lateral class of a closed embedded Lie subgroup of $G$; we also do this if $G$ is Lorentzian, provided $M$ has sufficiently large mean curvature. If $G$ is Riemannian semisimple and $M$ is compact, we prove that $M$ has degenerate Gauss map and minimal relative nullity at least 1. We also extend the above results to th…
One says that a smooth manifold M is a pseudo-Riemannian manifold of signature (p,q) if the tangent bundle TM is equipped with a smooth non-degenerate symmetric inner product g of signature (p,q). Similarly one says that M is an affine manifold if TM is equipped with a torsion free connection. One says g is Osserman if the eigenvalues of the Jacobi operator are constant on the pseudo-sphere bundles of unit timelike and spacelike vectors. We extend this concept from the pseudo-Riemannian to the affine setting to define the notion of a projectively Osserman manifold. This notion is the focus of …
In the algebraic context, we show that null Osserman, spacelike Osserman, and timelike Osserman are equivalent conditions for a model of signature (2,2). We also classify the null Jordan Osserman models of signature (2,2). In the geometric context, we show that a pseudo-Riemannian manifold of signature (2,2) is null Jordan Osserman if and only if either it has constant sectional curvature or it is locally a complex space form.
Given a Lorentzian manifold $(M,g)$, a geodesic $γ$ in $M$ and a timelike Jacobi field $\mathcal Y$ along $γ$, we introduce a special class of instants along $γ$ that we call $\mathcal Y$-pseudo conjugate (or focal relatively to some initial orthogonal submanifold). We prove that the $\mathcal Y$-pseudo conjugate instants form a finite set, and their number equals the Morse index of (a suitable restriction of) the index form. This gives a Riemannian-like Morse index theorem. As special cases of the theory, we will consider geodesics in stationary and static Lorentzian manifolds, where the Jaco…
On a (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold (MM,g), some fields of endomorphisms i.e. sections of End(TMM) may be parallel for g. They form an associative algebra A, which is also the commutant of the holonomy group of g. As any associative algebra, A is the sum of its radical and of a semi-simple algebra S. Here we study S: it may be of eight different types, including the generic type S=R.Id, and the Kähler and hyperkähler types 'S isomorphic to C' and 'S isomorphic to the quaternions'. This is a result on real, semi-simple algebras with involution. For each type, the corresponding set of germs of met…
Let M be a pseudo-Riemannian manifold with a pseudo-Hermitian complex structure $J$. We give necessary and sufficient conditions that the curvature operator $R(π)$ is complex linear when $π$ is a $J$ invariant real 2 plane. Under this assumption, we study when M is complex IP - i.e. the spectrum, or more generally the Jordan normal form, of $R(π)$ is constant on the Grassmannian of complex spacelike or timelike lines. Methods from algebraic topology are used to obtain restrictions on the spectrum of a complex IP algebraic curvature tensor.
Non-local boundary conditions, such as the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer (APS) conditions, for Dirac operators on Riemannian manifolds are well understood while not much is known for such operators on spacetimes with timelike boundary. We define a class of Lorentzian boundary conditions that are local in time and non-local in the spatial directions and show that they lead to a well-posed Cauchy problem for the Dirac operator. This applies in particular to the APS conditions imposed on each level set of a given Cauchy temporal function.
Let $M$ be a negatively curved compact Riemannian manifold with (possibly empty) convex boundary. Every closed differential $2$-form $ξ\inΩ^2(M)$ defines a bounded cocycle $c_ξ\in C_b^2(M)$ by integrating $ξ$ over straightened $2$-simplices. In particular Barge and Ghys proved that, when $M$ is a closed hyperbolic surface, $Ω^2(M)$ injects this way in $H_b^2(M)$ as an infinite dimensional subspace. We show that any class of the form $[c_ξ]$, where $ξ$ is an exact differential 2-form, belongs to the radical of the cup product on the graded algebra $H_b^\bullet(M)$.
It is well known that in Lorentzian geometry there are no compact spherical space forms; in dimension 3, this means there are no closed Einstein 3-manifolds with positive Einstein constant. We generalize this fact here, by proving that there are also no closed Lorentzian 3-manifolds $(M,g)$ whose Ricci tensor satisfies $$ \text{Ric} = fg+(f-λ)T^{\flat}\otimes T^{\flat}, $$ for any unit timelike vector field $T$, any positive constant $λ$, and any smooth function $f$ that never takes the values $0,λ$. (Observe that this reduces to the positive Einstein case when $f = λ$.) We show that there is …
We revisit certain path-lifting and path-continuation properties of abstract maps as described in the work of F. Browder and R. Rheindboldt in 1950-1960s, and apply their elegant theory to exponential maps. We obtain thereby a number of novel results of existence and multiplicity of geodesics joining any two points of a connected affine manifold, as well as ${\it causal}$ geodesics connecting any two causally related points on a Lorentzian manifold. These results include a generalization of the well-known Hadamard-Cartan theorem of Riemannian geometry to the affine manifold context, as well as…
