English

Can we make a Finsler metric complete by a trivial projective change?

Differential Geometry 2015-10-02 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Mathematical Physics Metric Geometry math.MP

Abstract

A trivial projective change of a Finsler metric FF is the Finsler metric F+dfF + df. I explain when it is possible to make a given Finsler metric both forward and backward complete by a trivial projective change. The problem actually came from lorentz geometry and mathematical relativity: it was observed that it is possible to understand the light-line geodesics of a (normalized, standard) stationary 4-dimensional space-time as geodesics of a certain Finsler Randers metric on a 3-dimensional manifold. The trivial projective change of the Finsler metric corresponds to the choice of another 3-dimensional slice, and the existence of a trivial projective change that is forward and backward complete is equivalent to the global hyperbolicity of the space-time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1112.5060,
  title  = {Can we make a Finsler metric complete by a trivial projective change?},
  author = {Vladimir S. Matveev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.5060},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

11 pages, one figure, submitted to the proceedings of VI International Meeting on Lorentzian Geometry (Granada)