English

Maximal extension of conformally flat globally hyperbolic space-times

Differential Geometry 2014-01-08 v2

Abstract

The notion of maximal extension of a globally hyperbolic space-time arises from the notion of maximal solutions of the Cauchy problem associated to the Einstein's equations of general relativity. In 1969 Choquet-Bruhat and Geroch proved that if the Cauchy problem has a local solution, this solution has a unique maximal extension. Since the causal structure of a space-time is invariant under conformal changes of metrics we may generalize this notion of maximality to the conformal setting. In this article we focus on conformally flat space-times of dimension greater or equal than 3. In this case, by a Lorentzian version of Liouville theorem, these space-times are locally modeled on the Einstein space-time. In the first part we use this fact to prove the existence and uniqueness of the maximum extension for globally hyperbolic conformally flat space-times. In the second part we find a causal characterization of globally hyperbolic conformally flat maximal space-times whose developing map is a global diffeomorphism.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1306.3753,
  title  = {Maximal extension of conformally flat globally hyperbolic space-times},
  author = {Clara Rossi Salvemini},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.3753},
  year   = {2014}
}