Quadratic Bolza problems in static spacetimes with critical asymptotic behavior (Q2504869)

Let \((N,g)\) be a Riemannian manifold. If \(\beta\) is a positive function on \(N\) and \(d\) is the canonical metric on \(\mathbb R\), then a connected Lorentzian manifold \((M,g_{_ L})\), where \(M=N\times\mathbb R\) and \(g_{_ L}=g-\beta\, d\), is called a static spacetime. A pair \(z=(x,t)\in M\) is called an event. Let \(V\in C^ 1(M\times \mathbb R,\mathbb R)\) be a scalar potential. For any two events \(z_ 1\) and \(z_ 2\) in \(M\), the authors are interested in geodesic connections of \(z_ 1\) with \(z_ 2\) in time \(T\). It turns out that these connections are smooth solutions of the non-linear boundary value problem \((*)\;D^ L_ s \dot z - \nabla_ LV(z,s)=0\), for \(s\in [0,T]\) with \(z(0)=z_ 1\) and \(z(T)=z_ 2\), where \(D^ L_ s\) and \(\nabla_ L\) are, respectively, the covariant derivative and the gradient with respect to \(g_{_ L}\). Also, they can be characterized as critical points of the action functional \[ f_ V(z)=\frac12\int_ 0^ Tg_{_ L}(\dot z,\dot z)\, ds-\int_ 0^ TV(z,s)\, ds. \] In this paper, the authors show that if the scalar potential \(V\in C^ 1(M\times [0,\delta],\mathbb R)\) satisfies \(V(z,s)=V(x,s)\) for all \(z=(x,t)\) on a static spacetime \((M,g_{_ L})\) satisfying certain additional conditions, then for each pair of events \(z_ 1\) and \(z_ 2\) there exists at least one solution of the boundary value problem \((*)\) if the arrival time \(T \in (0, \delta]\) is smaller than a positive constant. Moreover, if \(N\) is not contractible, then there exist infinitely many such solutions.