English

On the Einstein condition for Lorentzian 3-manifolds

Differential Geometry 2021-12-09 v4

Abstract

It is well known that in Lorentzian geometry there are no compact spherical space forms; in dimension 3, this means there are no closed Einstein 3-manifolds with positive Einstein constant. We generalize this fact here, by proving that there are also no closed Lorentzian 3-manifolds (M,g)(M,g) whose Ricci tensor satisfies Ric=fg+(fλ)TT, \text{Ric} = fg+(f-\lambda)T^{\flat}\otimes T^{\flat}, for any unit timelike vector field TT, any positive constant λ\lambda, and any smooth function ff that never takes the values 0,λ0,\lambda. (Observe that this reduces to the positive Einstein case when f=λf = \lambda.) We show that there is no such obstruction if λ\lambda is negative. Finally, the "borderline" case λ=0\lambda = 0 is also examined: we show that if λ=0\lambda = 0 and f>0f > 0, then (M,g)(M,g) must be isometric to (S1 ⁣× ⁣N,dt2h)(\mathbb{S}^1\!\times \!N,-dt^2\oplus h) with (N,h)(N,h) a Riemannian manifold.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2005.09508,
  title  = {On the Einstein condition for Lorentzian 3-manifolds},
  author = {Amir Babak Aazami},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.09508},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

v4: this is a reposting of v2; the previous version (v3) contained an error in the proof of Proposition 2

R2 v1 2026-06-23T15:39:46.813Z