As R.Feynman has shown to F. Dyson -- who published it then in 1990 under the name of "Feynman's proof of Maxwell's equations" -- the only interactions compatible with the canonical uncertainty relation (for scalar particles on flat $\R^3$) are the Lorentz covariant electromagnetic interactions. We generalize Feynman's argument to arbitrary configuration spaces, thereby clarifying its hidden assumptions as well as its geometrical significance. In addition, our result establishes a correspondence between globally hyperbolic spacetimes and solutions to our (algebraically formulated) axioms for nonrelativistic quantum mechanics.
Connes' noncommutative Riemannian distance formula is constructed in two steps, the first one being the construction of a path-independent geometrical functional using a global constraint on continuous functions. This paper generalizes this first step to Lorentzian geometry. We show that, in a globally hyperbolic spacetime, a single global timelike eikonal condition is sufficient to construct a path-independent Lorentzian distance function.
We consider Dirac equations on even dimensional Lorentzian manifolds of bounded geometry with a spin structure. For the associated free quantum field theory, we construct pure Hadamard states using global pseudodifferential calculus on a Cauchy surface. We also give two constructions of Hadamard states for Dirac fields for arbitrary spacetimes with a spin structure.(2nd revised version). Will appear in Rev. Math. Phys.
For almost twenty years, a search for a Lorentzian version of the well-known Connes' distance formula has been undertaken. Several authors have contributed to this search, providing important milestones, and the time has now come to put those elements together in order to get a valid and functional formula. This paper presents a historical review of the construction and the proof of a Lorentzian distance formula suitable for noncommutative geometry.
We propose a formulation of a Lorentzian quantum geometry based on the framework of causal fermion systems. After giving the general definition of causal fermion systems, we deduce space-time as a topological space with an underlying causal structure. Restricting attention to systems of spin dimension two, we derive the objects of our quantum geometry: the spin space, the tangent space endowed with a Lorentzian metric, connection and curvature. In order to get the correspondence to differential geometry, we construct examples of causal fermion systems by regularizing Dirac sea configurations i…
This thesis concerns the research on a Lorentzian generalization of Alain Connes' noncommutative geometry. In the first chapter, we present an introduction to noncommutative geometry within the context of unification theories. The second chapter is dedicated to the basic elements of noncommutative geometry as the noncommutative integral, the Riemannian distance function and spectral triples. In the last chapter, we investigate the problem of the generalization to Lorentzian manifolds. We present a first step of generalization of the distance function with the use of a global timelike eikonal c…
The theory of noncommutative geometry provides an interesting mathematical background for developing new physical models. In particular, it allows one to describe the classical Standard Model coupled to Euclidean gravity. However, noncommutative geometry has mainly been developed using the Euclidean signature, and the typical Lorentzian aspects of space-time, the causal structure in particular, are not taken into account. We present an extension of noncommutative geometry à la Connes suitable the for accommodation of Lorentzian structures. In this context, we show that it is possible to recove…
The fermionic signature operator is analyzed on globally hyperbolic Lorentzian surfaces. The connection between the spectrum of the fermionic signature operator and geometric properties of the surface is studied. The findings are illustrated by simple examples and counterexamples.
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…
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 notion of relativistic observer is confronted with Naveira's classification of (pseudo-)Riemannian almost-product structures on space-time manifolds. Some physical properties and their geometrical counterparts are shortly discussed.
We develop a dimension-independent theory of alignment in Lorentzian geometry, and apply it to the tensor classification problem for the Weyl and Ricci tensors. First, we show that the alignment condition is equivalent to the PND equation. In 4D, this recovers the usual Petrov types. For higher dimensions, we prove that, in general, a Weyl tensor does not possess aligned directions. We then go on to describe a number of additional algebraic types for the various alignment configurations. For the case of second-order symmetric (Ricci) tensors, we perform the classification by considering the ge…
A sketch of an approach towards Lorentzian spectral geometry (based on joint work with Mario Paschke) is described, together with a general way to define abstractly the quantized Dirac field on such Lorentzian spectral geometries. Moyal-Minkowski spacetime serves as an example. The scattering of the quantized Dirac field by a non-commutative (Moyal-deformed) action of an external scalar potential is investigated. It is shown that differentiating the S-matrix with respect to the strength of the scattering potential gives rise to quantum field operators depending on elements of the non-commutati…
We consider the Klein-Gordon equation on a class of Lorentzian manifolds with Cauchy surface of bounded geometry, which is shown to include examples such as exterior Kerr, Kerr-de Sitter and Kerr-Kruskal spacetimes. In this setup, we give an approximate diagonalization and a microlocal decomposition of the Cauchy evolution using a time-dependent version of the pseu-dodifferential calculus on Riemannian manifolds of bounded geometry. We apply this result to construct all pure regular Hadamard states (and associated Feynman inverses), where regular refers to the state's two-point function having…
I introduce a family of closeness functions between causal Lorentzian geometries of finite volume and arbitrary underlying topology. When points are randomly scattered in a Lorentzian manifold, with uniform density according to the volume element, some information on the topology and metric is encoded in the partial order that the causal structure induces among those points; one can then define closeness between Lorentzian geometries by comparing the sets of probabilities they give for obtaining the same posets. If the density of points is finite, one gets a pseudo-distance, which only compare…
We consider infinite random casual Lorentzian triangulations emerging in quantum gravity for critical values of parameters. With each vertex of the triangulation we associate a Hilbert space representing a bosonic particle moving in accordance with standard laws of Quantum Mechanics. The particles interact via two-body potentials decaying with the graph distance. A Mermin--Wagner type theorem is proven for infinite-volume reduced density matrices related to solutions to DLR equations in the Feynman--Kac (FK) representation.
The concept of closed trapped surface is of paramount importance in General Relativity and other gravitational theories. However, it is a purely geometrical object. With the aim of bringing this concept to closer attention by the mathematical community, I introduce the generalized idea of trapped submanifold by using the causal character of the mean curvature vector. Trapped surfaces can thus be easily seen to be generalizations, possible in semi-Riemannian geometry, of the standard concepts of minimal surfaces, maximal hypersurfaces, geodesics, and the like. Selected applications are mentione…
Connes' functional formula of the Riemannian distance is generalized to the Lorentzian case using the so-called Lorentzian distance, the d'Alembert operator and the causal functions of a globally hyperbolic spacetime. As a step of the presented machinery, a proof of the almost-everywhere smoothness of the Lorentzian distance considered as a function of one of the two arguments is given. Afterwards, using a $C^*$-algebra approach, the spacetime causal structure and the Lorentzian distance are generalized into noncommutative structures giving rise to a Lorentzian version of part of Connes' nonco…
We explore the 1-loop renormalization group flow of two models coming from a generalization of the Connes-Lott version of Noncommutative Geometry in Lorentzian signature: the Noncommutative Standard Model and its B-L extension. Both make predictions on coupling constants at high energy, but only the latter is found to be compatible with the top quark and Higgs boson masses at the electroweak scale. We took into account corrections introduced by threshold effects and the relative positions of the Dirac and Majorana neutrino mass matrices and found them to be important. Some effects of 2-loop co…
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 …
Motivated by the application to spacetimes of general relativity we investigate the geometry and regularity of Lorentzian manifolds under certain curvature and volume bounds. We establish several injectivity radius estimates at a point or on the past null cone of a point. Our estimates are entirely local and geometric, and are formulated via a reference Riemannian metric that we canonically associate with a given observer $(p,T)$ --where $p$ is a point of the manifold and $T$ is a future-oriented time-like unit vector prescribed at $p$. The proofs are based on a generalization of arguments fro…
We present the notion of temporal Lorentzian spectral triple which is an extension of the notion of pseudo-Riemannian spectral triple with a way to ensure that the signature of the metric is Lorentzian. A temporal Lorentzian spectral triple corresponds to a specific 3+1 decomposition of a possibly noncommutative Lorentzian space. This structure introduces a notion of global time in noncommutative geometry. As an example, we construct a temporal Lorentzian spectral triple over a Moyal--Minkowski spacetime. We show that, when time is commutative, the algebra can be extended to unbounded elements…
The optimal transport problem is studied in the context of Lorentz-Finsler geometry. For globally hyperbolic Lorentz-Finsler spacetimes the first Kantorovich problem and the Monge problem are solved. Further the intermediate regularity of the transport paths is studied. These results generalize parts of Bertrand & Puel and Brenier et al.
In this paper, we discuss two features of the noncommmutative geometry and spectral action approach to the Standard Model: the fact that the model is inherently Euclidean, and that it requires a quadrupling of the fermionic degrees of freedom. We show how the two issues are intimately related. We give a precise prescription for the Wick rotation from the Euclidean theory to the Lorentzian one, eliminating the extra degrees of freedom. This requires not only projecting out mirror fermions, as has been done so far, and which leads to the correct Pfaffian, but also the elimination of the remainin…
Given a semi-Riemannian $4$-manifold $(M,g)$ with two distinguished vector fields satisfying properties determined by their shear, twist and various Lie bracket relations, a family of Kähler metrics $g_K$ is constructed, defined on an open set in $M$, which coincides with $M$ in many typical examples. Under certain conditions $g$ and $g_K$ share various properties, such as a Killing vector field or a vector field with a geodesic flow. In some cases the Kähler metrics are complete. The Ricci and scalar curvatures of $g_K$ are computed under certain assumptions in terms of data associated to $g$…
We embed Nelson's stochastic quantization in the Schwartz-Meyer second order geometry framework. The result is a non-perturbative theory of quantum mechanics on (pseudo)-Riemannian manifolds. Within this approach, we derive stochastic differential equations for massive spin-0 test particles charged under scalar potentials, vector potentials and gravity. Furthermore, we derive the associated Schrödinger equation. The resulting equations show that massive scalar particles must be conformally coupled to gravity in a theory of quantum gravity. We conclude with a discussion of some prospects of the…
We use a construction which we call generalized cylinders to give a new proof of the fundamental theorem of hypersurface theory. It has the advantage of being very simple and the result directly extends to semi-Riemannian manifolds and to embeddings into spaces of constant curvature. We also give a new way to identify spinors for different metrics and to derive the variation formula for the Dirac operator. Moreover, we show that generalized Killing spinors for Codazzi tensors are restrictions of parallel spinors. Finally, we study the space of Lorentzian metrics and give a criterion when two L…
We present a definition of null G-structures on Lorentzian manifolds and investigate their geometric properties. This definition includes the Robinson structure on 4-dimensional black holes as well as the null structures that appear in all supersymmetric solutions of supergravity theories. We also identify the induced geometry on some null hypersurfaces and that on the orbit spaces of null geodesic congruences in such Lorentzian manifolds. We give the algebra of diffeomorphisms that preserves a null G-structure and demonstrate that in some cases it interpolates between the BMS algebra of an as…
The dual problem of optimal transportation in Lorentz-Finsler geometry is studied. It is shown that in general no solution exists even in the presence of an optimal coupling. Under natural assumptions dual solutions are established. It is further shown that the existence of a dual solution implies that the optimal transport is timelike on a set of full measure. In the second part the persistence of absolute continuity along an optimal transportation under obvious assumptions is proven and a solution to the relativistic Monge problem is provided.
We introduce an analogue of the theory of length spaces into the setting of Lorentzian geometry and causality theory. The rôle of the metric is taken over by the time separation function, in terms of which all basic notions are formulated. In this way we recover many fundamental results in greater generality, while at the same time clarifying the minimal requirements for and the interdependence of the basic building blocks of the theory. A main focus of this work is the introduction of synthetic curvature bounds, akin to the theory of Alexandrov and CAT$(k)$-spaces, based on triangle compariso…
