Related papers: Optical geometries
We investigate the geometry of almost Robinson manifolds, Lorentzian analogues of almost Hermitian manifolds, defined by Nurowski and Trautman as Lorentzian manifolds of even dimension equipped with a totally null complex distribution of…
In a companion paper (Jonsson and Westman, Class. Quantum Grav. 23 (2006) 61), a generalization of optical geometry, assuming a non-shearing reference congruence, is discussed. Here we illustrate that this formalism can be applied to a…
We present a definition of null G-structures on Lorentzian manifolds and investigate their geometric properties. This definition includes the Robinson structure on 4-dimensional black holes as well as the null structures that appear in all…
Motivated by the thermodynamics of black hole solutions conformal to stationary solutions, we study the geometric invariant theory of null hypersurfaces. It is well-known that a null hypersurface in a Lorentzian manifold can be treated as a…
General relativity includes geometrical optics. This basic fact has relevant consequences that concern the physical meaning of the discontinuity surfaces propagated in the gravitational field - as it was first emphasized by Levi-Civita.
Starting from the classical notion of an oriented congruence (i.e. a foliation by oriented curves) in $R^3$, we abstract the notion of an oriented congruence structure. This is a 3-dimensional CR manifold $(M,H, J)$ with a preferred…
The null distance for Lorentzian manifolds was recently introduced by Sormani and Vega. Under mild assumptions on the time function of the spacetime, the null distance gives rise to an intrinsic, conformally invariant metric that induces…
We discuss three different (conformally) Carrollian geometries and their relation to null infinity from the unifying perspective of Cartan geometry. Null infinity \emph{per se} comes with numerous redundancies in its intrinsic geometry and…
Following Geroch, Traschen, Mars and Senovilla, we consider Lorentzian manifolds with distributional curvature tensor. Such manifolds represent spacetimes of general relativity that possibly contain gravitational waves, shock waves, and…
Lie derivatives of various geometrical and physical quantities define symmetries and conformal symmetries in general relativity. Thus we obtain motions, collineations, conformal motions and conformal collineations. These symmetries are used…
The notion of optical geometry, introduced more than twenty years ago as a formal tool in quantum field theory on a static background, has recently found several applications to the study of physical processes around compact objects. In…
Motivated by the application to spacetimes of general relativity we investigate the geometry and regularity of Lorentzian manifolds under certain curvature and volume bounds. We establish several injectivity radius estimates at a point or…
It is well-known that unlike space-like and time-like hypersurfaces, null hypersurfaces in Lorentzian manifolds do not naturally inherit an affine connection from the spacetime in which they are embedded. On the other hand, recent…
This thesis concerns the research on a Lorentzian generalization of Alain Connes' noncommutative geometry. In the first chapter, we present an introduction to noncommutative geometry within the context of unification theories. The second…
These notes give an informal and leisurely introduction to $\mathrm{G}_2$ geometry for beginners. A special emphasis is placed on understanding the special linear algebraic structure in $7$ dimensions that is the pointwise model for…
Optical (or Robinson) structures are one generalisation of four-dimensional shearfree congruences of null geodesics to higher dimensions. They are Lorentzian analogues of complex and CR structures. In this context, we extend the…
Locally homogeneous Lorentzian three-manifolds with recurrect curvature are special examples of Walker manifolds, that is, they admit a parallel null vector field. We obtain a full classification of the symmetries of these spaces, with…
We pursue a geometrical approach to gravitational lensing theory. We present a survey of the background theory of General Relativity, including particular properties of the Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions. Next we outline a proof of the…
The geometries of spaces having as groups the real orthogonal groups and some of their contractions are described from a common point of view. Their central extensions and Casimirs are explicitly given. An approach to the trigonometry of…
The null distance of Sormani and Vega encodes the manifold topology as well as the causality structure of a (smooth) spacetime. We extend this concept to Lorentzian length spaces, the analog of (metric) length spaces, which generalize…