Timelike periodic trajectories in spatially compact Lorentz manifolds (Q4257632)

The author studies the existence of timelike periodic trajectories in Lorentzian manifolds. The first result is the following: let \((M, g)\) be a stationary Lorentzian manifold with compact spatial part, and let \({\mathcal C}\) be a non-zero conjugacy class of the fundamental group \(\pi(M)\). Then, there exists a number \(T_{\mathcal C}\) such that for any \(T> T_{\mathcal C}\) there exists a timelike \(T\)-periodic trajectory in the class \({\mathcal C}\), while there are no timelike \(T\)-periodic trajectories if \(0< T\leq T_{\mathcal C}\). This result is an extension of some results on the existence of timelike trajectories due to Benci, Fortunato, Giannoni, Greco, Masiello. The second result is the following: let \((M,g)\) be a splitting Lorentzian manifold whose coefficients are \(T\)-periodic and let \({\mathcal C}\) be a non-zero conjugacy class of the fundamental group \(\pi(M)\). Then, there exists a positive integer \(n_{\mathcal C}\) such that for any \(n\geq n_{\mathcal C}\) there exists a timelike \(nT\)-periodic trajectory in the class \({\mathcal C}\), while there are no timelike \(nT\)-periodic trajectories in the class \({\mathcal C}\) if \(0\leq n\leq n_{\mathcal C}\). The results are obtained using causality techniques and the Lorentzian distance function.