On some methods of construction of invariant normalizations of lightlike hypersurfaces (Q1573625): Difference between revisions

On a spacelike (resp. timelike) hypersurface of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) of Lorentzian signature there exists an induced Riemannian (resp. pseudo-Riemannian) metric, and also the corresponding connection. For a lightlike hypersurface it is not so and therefore a normalization (i.e., a field of not tangent directions) is needed to obtain an affine connection on the hypersurface. Usually the normalization is given by a field of isotropic directions. The problem to construct such a normalization invariantly, i.e., intrinsically connected with the geometry of the lightlike hypersurface, was open until now. In the present paper this problem is solved, the methods use the moving frame bundles and É. Cartan's exterior differential form calculus. By means of the first and second fundamental forms, a series of relative and absolute invariants is constructed in a second-order neighbourhood of a point, and then the invariant normalizations in a third-order neighbourhood. Especially the cases of some classes of lightlike hypersurfaces are considered: totally geodesic, totally umbilical, and belonging to a pseudo-Riemannian manifold of constant curvature, also to a general four-dimensional \((M,g)\) of Lorentzian signature. In the last case the lightlike hypersurfaces are important in general relativity as models of horizons. The role of the isotropic sectional curvatures in the geometry of such hypersurfaces is clarified.