We prove a structure theorem for compact aspherical Lorentz manifolds with abundant local symmetry. If M is a compact, aspherical, real-analytic, complete Lorentz manifold such that the isometry group of the universal cover has semisimple identity component, then the local isometry orbits in M are roughly fibers of a fiber bundle. A corollary is that if M has a dense local isometry orbit then M is locally homogeneous. The main result is analogous to a theorem of Farb and Weinberger on compact aspherical Riemannian manifolds, and an exposition of their arguments on rational cohomological dimension is included. Some aspects of dynamics on Lorentz manifolds are also presented, including totally geodesic, lightlike, codimension-one foliations associated to unbounded sequences of isometries.
We describe the compact Lorentzian $3$-manifolds admitting a parallel lightlike vector field. The classification of compact Lorentzian $3$-manifolds admitting non-isometric affine diffeomorphisms follows, together with the complete description of these morphisms. Such a Lorentzian manifold is in some sense an equivariant deformation of a flat one.
We prove that the conformal group of a closed, simply connected, real analytic Lorentzian manifold is compact. D'Ambra proved in 1988 that the isometry group of such a manifold is compact. Our result implies the Lorentzian Lichnerowicz Conjecture for real analytic Lorentzian manifolds with finite fundamental group. Third version includes corrections and clarifications, particularly in section 6.
We give a classification, up to local isomorphisms, of semi-simple Lie groups without compact factors that can act faithfully and conformally on a compact Lorentz manifold of dimension greater than or equal to $3$.
Given a compact, three-dimensional, real-analytic Lorentzian manifold $(M,g)$, we prove that the identity component of the conformal group preserves a metric in the conformal class $[g]$, or $(M,g)$ is conformally flat.
We study curvature properties of four-dimensional Lorentzian manifold with two-symmetry property. We then consider Einstein-like metrics, Ricci solitons and homogeneity over these spaces.
In this paper we define Fermi-type coordinates in a 2-dimensional Lorentz manifold, and use this coordinate system to provide a local characterization of constant Gaussian curvature metrics for such manifolds, following a classical result from Riemann. We then exhibit particular isometric immersions of such metrics in the pseudo-Riemannian ambients L^3 (i.e., usual Lorentz-Minkowski space) and R^3_2 (i.e., R^3 endowed with an index 2 flat metric).
The classification problem for holonomy of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds is actual and open. In the present paper, holonomy algebras of Lorentz-Kähler manifolds are classified. A simple construction of a metric for each holonomy algebra is given. Complex Walker coordinates are introduced and described using the potential. Complex pp-waves are characterized in terms of the curvature, holonomy and the potential. Classification of Lorentz-Kähler symmetric spaces is reviewed.
We show an analogue of the Lorentzian splitting theorem for weighted Lorentz-Finsler manifolds: If a weighted Berwald spacetime of nonnegative weighted Ricci curvature satisfies certain completeness and metrizability conditions and includes a timelike straight line, then it necessarily admits a one-dimensional family of isometric translations generated by the gradient vector field of a Busemann function. Moreover, our formulation in terms of the $ε$-range introduced in our previous work enables us to unify the previously known splitting theorems for weighted Lorentzian manifolds by Case and Wo…
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 …
The main result of this paper is the conformal flatness of real-analytic compact Lorentz manifolds of dimension at least $3$ admitting a conformal essential (i.e. conformal, but not isometric) action of a Lie group locally isomorphic to PSL(2,R). It is established by using a general result of M. Gromov on local isometries of real-analytic $A$-rigid geometric structures. As corollary, we deduce the same conclusion for conformal essential actions of connected semi-simple Lie groups on real-analytic compact Lorentz manifolds. This work is a contribution to the understanding of the Lorentzian vers…
We prove that any metric of non-positive curvature in the sense of Alexandrov on a compact surface can be isometrically embedded as a convex spacelike Cauchy surface in a flat spacetime of dimension (2+1). The proof follows from polyhedral approximation.
In this paper, we investigate space-like graphs defined over a domain $Ω\subset M^{n}$ in the Lorentz manifold $M^{n}\times\mathbb{R}$ with the metric $-ds^{2}+σ$, where $M^{n}$ is a complete Riemannian $n$-manifold with the metric $σ$, $Ω$ has piecewise smooth boundary, and $\mathbb{R}$ denotes the Euclidean $1$-space. We can prove an interesting stability result for translating space-like graphs in $M^{n}\times\mathbb{R}$ under a conformal transformation.
We consider Lorentzian manifolds with parallel light-like vector field V. Being parallel and light-like, the orthogonal complement of V induces a codimension one foliation. Assuming compactness of the leaves and non-negative Ricci curvature on the leaves it is known that the first Betti number is bounded by the dimension of the manifold or the leaves if the manifold is compact or non-compact, respectively. We prove in the case of the maximality of the first Betti number that every such Lorentzian manifold is - up to finite cover - diffeomorphic to the torus (in the compact case) or the product…
In this paper, for the Lorentz manifold $M^{2}\times\mathbb{R}$, with $M^{2}$ a $2$-dimensional complete surface with nonnegative Gaussian curvature, we investigate its space-like graphs over compact strictly convex domains in $M^{2}$, which are evolving by the non-parametric mean curvature flow with prescribed contact angle boundary condition, and show that solutions converge to ones moving only by translation.
We consider a hyperbolic Dirac-type operator with growing potential on a a spatially non-compact globally hyperbolic manifold. We show that the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer boundary value problem for such operator is Fredholm and obtain a formula for this index in terms of the local integrals and the relative eta-invariant introduced by Braverman and Shi. This extends recent results of Bär and Strohmaier, who studied the index of a hyperbolic Dirac operator on a spatially compact globally hyperbolic manifold.
This paper looks at the splitting problem for globally hyperbolic spacetimes with timelike Ricci curvature bounded below containing a (spacelike, acausal, future causally complete) hypersurface with mean curvature bounded from above. For such spacetimes we show a splitting theorem under the assumption of either the existence of a ray of maximal length or a maximality condition on the volume of Lorentzian distance balls over the hypersurface. The proof of the first case follows work by Andersson, Galloway and Howard and uses their geometric maximum principle for level sets of the (Lorentzian) B…
In this work, we study the geometric properties of spacelike foliations by hypersurfaces on a Lorentz manifold. We investigate conditions for the leaves being stable, totally geodesic or totally umbilical. We consider that $\overline{M}^{n+1}$ is equipped with a timelike closed conformal vector field $ξ$. If the foliation has constant mean curvature, we show that the leaves are stable. When the leaves are compact spacelike hypersurfaces we show that, under certain conditions, its are totally umbilic hypersurfaces. In the case of foliations by complete noncompact hypersurfaces, we using a Maxim…
We address the problem of finding conditions under which a compact Lorentzian manifold is geodesically complete, a property, which always holds for compact Riemannian manifolds. It is known that a compact Lorentzian manifold is geodesically complete if it is homogeneous, or has constant curvature, or admits a time-like conformal vector field. We consider certain Lorentzian manifolds with Abelian holonomy, which are locally modelled by the so called pp-waves, and which, in general, do not satisfy any of the above conditions. %the condition that their curvature sends vectors that are orthogonal …
We show that the Dirac operator on a compact globally hyperbolic Lorentzian spacetime with spacelike Cauchy boundary is a Fredholm operator if appropriate boundary conditions are imposed. We prove that the index of this operator is given by the same expression as in the index formula of Atiyah-Patodi-Singer for Riemannian manifolds with boundary. The index is also shown to equal that of a certain operator constructed from the evolution operator and a spectral projection on the boundary. In case the metric is of product type near the boundary a Feynman parametrix is constructed.
We consider (compact or noncompact) Lorentzian manifolds whose holonomy group has compact closure. Among other results, we obtain that this property is equivalent to admitting a parallel timelike vector field. We also derive some properties of the space of all such metrics on a given manifold.
In this paper, we give a complete topological, as well as geometrical classification of closed 3-dimensional Lorentz manifolds admitting a noncompact isometry group.
We study the weighted ray transform of integrating functions on a Lorentzian manifold over lightlike geodesics. We prove support theorems if the manifold and the weight are analytic.
We prove a structure theorem for the isometry group Iso(M, g) of a compact Lorentz manifold, under the assumption that a closed subgroup has exponential growth. We don't assume anything about the identity component of Iso(M, g), so that our results apply for discrete isometry groups. We infer a full classification of lattices that can act isometrically on compact Lorentz manifolds. Moreover, without any growth hypothesis, we prove a Tits alternative for discrete subgroups of Iso(M, g).
We prove that for any closed Lorentz $4$-manifold $(M,g)$ the isometry group $Isom(M,g)$ is Jordan. Namely, there exists a constant $C$ (depending on $M$ and $g$) such that any finite subgroup $Γ\leq Isom(M,g)$ has an abelian subgroup $A\leqΓ$ satisfying $[Γ:A]\leq C$.
We consider 3+1 rotationally symmetric Lorentzian Einstein spacetime manifolds with $Λ>0$ and reduce the equations to 2+1 Einstein equations coupled to `shifted' wave maps. Subsequently, we prove various (explicit) positive mass-energy theorems. No smallness is assumed.
We consider conformal actions of simple Lie groups on compact Lorentzian manifolds. Mainly motivated by the Lorentzian version of a conjecture of Lichnerowicz, we establish the alternative: Either the group acts isometrically for some metric in the conformal class, or the manifold is conformally flat - that is, everywhere locally conformally diffeomorphic to Minkowski space-time. When the group is non-compact and not locally isomorphic to SO(1,n), n>1, we derive global conclusions, extending a theorem of Frances and Zeghib to some simple Lie groups of real-rank 1. This result is also a first s…
