English

Lightlike sets with applications to the rigidity of null geodesic incompleteness

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2014-08-20 v1 Differential Geometry

Abstract

An important, if relatively less well known aspect of the singularity theorems in Lorentzian Geometry is to understand how their conclusions fare upon weakening or suppression of one or more of their hypotheses. Then, theorems with modified concusions may arise, showing that those conclusions will fail only in special cases, at least some of which may be described. These are the so-called rigidity theorems, and have many important examples in the especialized literature. In this paper, we prove rigidity results for generalized plane waves and certain globally hyperbolic spacetimes in the presence of maximal compact surfaces. Motivated by some general properties appearing in these proofs, we develop the theory of lightlike sets, entities similar to achronal sets, but more appropriate to deal with low-regularity null submanifolds.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1408.4358,
  title  = {Lightlike sets with applications to the rigidity of null geodesic incompleteness},
  author = {I. P. Costa e Silva and J. L. Flores},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.4358},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

23 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T05:33:32.419Z