English

Causality and skies: is non-refocussing necessary?

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2015-06-23 v1 Mathematical Physics Differential Geometry math.MP

Abstract

It is shown that if MM is a strongly causal free of naked singularities space-time, then its causal structure is completely characterized by a partial order in the space of skies defined by means of a class non-negative Legendrian isotopies. It is also proved that such partial order is determined by the class of future causal celestial curves, that is, curves in the space of light rays which are tangent to skies and such that they determine non-negative sky-Legendrian isotopies. It will also be proved that the space of skies Σ\Sigma equipped with Low's (or reconstructive) topology is homeomorphic and diffeomorphic to MM under the only additional assumption that MM separates skies, that is, that different points determine different skies. The sky-separating property of MM being weaker than the "non-refocussing" property encountered in the previous literature is sharp and the previous result provides the answer to the question of what is the class of space-times whose causal structure, topology and differentiable structure can be reconstructed from their spaces of light rays and skies. Finally, the previous results allow a formulation of Malament-Hawking theorem in terms of the partial order defined on the space of skies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1411.1570,
  title  = {Causality and skies: is non-refocussing necessary?},
  author = {A. Bautista and A. Ibort and J. Lafuente},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.1570},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T06:49:49.313Z