English

Structure of globally hyperbolic spacetimes with timelike boundary

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2021-04-23 v4 Differential Geometry

Abstract

Globally hyperbolic spacetimes with timelike boundary (M=MM,g)(\overline{M} = M \cup \partial M, g) are the natural class of spacetimes where regular boundary conditions (eventually asymptotic, if M\overline{M} is obtained by means of a conformal embedding) can be posed. M\partial M represents the naked singularities and can be identified with a part of the intrinsic causal boundary. Apart from general properties of M\partial M, the splitting of any globally hyperbolic (M,g)(\overline{M},g) as an orthogonal product R×Σˉ{\mathbb R}\times \bar{\Sigma} with Cauchy slices with boundary {t}×Σˉ\{t\}\times \bar{\Sigma} is proved. This is obtained by constructing a Cauchy temporal function τ\tau with gradient τ\nabla \tau tangent to M\partial M on the boundary. To construct such a τ\tau, results on stability of both, global hyperbolicity and Cauchy temporal functions are obtained. Apart from having their own interest, these results allow us to circumvent technical difficulties introduced by M\partial M. As a consequence, the interior MM both, splits orthogonally and can be embedded isometrically in LN{\mathbb L}^N, extending so properties of globally spacetimes without boundary to a class of causally continuous ones.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1808.04412,
  title  = {Structure of globally hyperbolic spacetimes with timelike boundary},
  author = {L. Aké Hau and José L. Flores and Miguel Sánchez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.04412},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Added Appendix B and four references, several improvements in section 2.4 and other minor modifications. To appear in Rev. Mat. Iberoamericana