Embeddings of non-positively curved compact surfaces in flat Lorentzian manifolds (Q2633059)

The metrics of non-negative curvature in the sense of Alexandrov constitute a class of distances on compact surfaces, introduced in the 40's by A. D. Alexandrov, who studied the induced distances on the boundary of convex sets of the Euclidean space. In [Intrinsic geometry of surfaces. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (1967; Zbl 0146.44103)], \textit{A. D. Aleksandrov} and \textit{V. A. Zalgaller} obtained a result about polyhedral approximations of particular distances on surfaces, which is the main tool for the paper under review. \textit{A. D. Alexandrov} considered in [Selected works. Intrinsic geometry of convex surfaces. Vol. 2. Edited by S. S. Kutateladze. Transl. from the Russian by S. Vakhrameyev. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman \& Hall/CRC (2005; Zbl 1081.01024)] a metric \(d\) of non-negative curvature on a compact surface \(S\) and proved that there exists a flat Riemannian manifold \(R\) homeomorphic to \(S\times \mathbb{R}\), which contains a convex surface whose induced distance is isometric to \((S,d)\). The case when the metric \(d\) is of non-positive curvature on a compact surface \(S\) is treated in the paper under review, where the authors show that there exists a flat Lorentzian manifold \(L\) homeomorphic to \(S\times \mathbb{R}\), which contains a space-like convex surface whose induced distance is isometric to \((S,d)\). More generally, when the compact surface is of genus \(\geq 2\) they prove the existence of a Fuchsian convex isometric immersion of the universal cover of \((S,d)\) into Minkowski space. By particularizing this result for a smooth Riemannian metric of negative sectional curvature on a compact surface, and for a polyhedral metric of non-positive curvature, respectively, one obtains some results from the papers [\textit{F. Labourie} and \textit{J.-M. Schlenker}, Math. Ann. 316, No. 3, 465--483 (2000; Zbl 0968.53047)] and [\textit{F. Fillastre}, Math. Ann. 350, No. 2, 417--453 (2011; Zbl 1229.52017)], respectively. Next, the authors show that if the images of a sequence of polyhedral Fuchsian convex isometric immersions are bounded by two hyperboloids, then there is a converging subsequence of immersions, and the induced distances are also converging.