On the existence and construction of stably causal Lorentzian metrics. (Q1608965)

Compact manifolds cannot always be given a Lorentzian metric. This is well-known, and it is connected with the Euler characteristic of the manifold. The analogous question is now posed for a non-compact manifold. Surprisingly, the result is easier than in the compact case; in the present paper, the author proves: Theorem 2: Any noncompact manifold can be given a time orientable Lorentzian metric admitting a smooth time function. Moreover, in the next section, the author shows, that some kind of geodesic completeness can be achieved in these cases. Finally, some relations to curvature and singularity theorems are given.