Curvature and closed trapped surfaces in 4-dimensional space-times (Q1082620)

The author studies 2-dimensional spacelike surfaces H in a 4-dimensional space-time M. Relations between the shape function and the average null curvature function of H and the curvature of the ambient space M are used to establish results on the existence and topological structure of closed trapped surfaces. In the first part some integral inequalities between these functions and other geometric entities are assumed to be satisfied to get these results. The geometric tools are the Lorentzian version of the Gauss-Codazzi equations and the Cohn-Vossen theorem on surfaces with positive curvature. In the second part the evolution of closed trapped surfaces is discussed. A compact strongly marginally future-converging spacelike surface H is considered and moved along a surface generated by suitably chosen orthogonal null geodesics. It is shown that in the cosmological and in the black hole circumstances a closed trapped surface diffeomorphic to \(S^ 2\) is obtained. Several remarks show that the assumption for the author's results are in accordance with realistic situations occurring in general relativity.