English

Legendrian links, causality, and the Low conjecture

Symplectic Geometry 2010-01-23 v3 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Mathematical Physics Geometric Topology math.MP

Abstract

Let (Xm+1,g)(X^{m+1}, g) be a globally hyperbolic spacetime with Cauchy surface diffeomorphic to an open subset of Rm\mathbb R^m. The Legendrian Low conjecture formulated by Nat\'ario and Tod says that two events x,y\ssx,y\in\ss are causally related if and only if the Legendrian link of spheres Sx,Sy\mathfrak S_x, \mathfrak S_y whose points are light geodesics passing through xx and yy is non-trivial in the contact manifold of all light geodesics in XX. The Low conjecture says that for m=2m=2 the events x,yx,y are causally related if and only if Sx,Sy\mathfrak S_x, \mathfrak S_y is non-trivial as a topological link. We prove the Low and the Legendrian Low conjectures. We also show that similar statements hold for any globally hyperbolic (Xm+1,g)(X^{m+1}, g) such that a cover of its Cauchy surface is diffeomorphic to an open domain in Rm.\mathbb R^m.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0810.5091,
  title  = {Legendrian links, causality, and the Low conjecture},
  author = {Vladimir Chernov and Stefan Nemirovski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.5091},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

Version 3 - minor improvements, references added 11 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:35:49.458Z