English

Rigidity aspects of Penrose's singularity theorem

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2025-01-23 v3 Differential Geometry

Abstract

In this paper, we study rigidity aspects of Penrose's singularity theorem. Specifically, we aim to answer the following question: if a spacetime satisfies the hypotheses of Penrose's singularity theorem except with weakly trapped surfaces instead of trapped surfaces, then what can be said about the global spacetime structure if the spacetime is null geodesically complete? In this setting, we show that we obtain a foliation of MOTS which generate totally geodesic null hypersurfaces. Depending on our starting assumptions, we obtain either local or global rigidity results. We apply our arguments to cosmological spacetimes (i.e., spacetimes with compact Cauchy surfaces) and scenarios involving topological censorship.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2402.11315,
  title  = {Rigidity aspects of Penrose's singularity theorem},
  author = {Gregory J. Galloway and Eric Ling},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.11315},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

18 pages. v3 agrees with published version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:51:51.117Z