On the space of null geodesics of a spacetime: the compact case, Engel geometry and retrievability (Q6139852)

As observed by Penrose and Low (see, e.g., [\textit{R. Penrose} and \textit{W. Rindler}, Spinors and space-time. Volume 1: Two-spinor calculus and relativistic fields. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1984; Zbl 0538.53024); \textit{R. J. Low}, J. Math. Phys. 30, No. 4, 809--811 (1989; Zbl 0677.53070)]), there are many situations in which the set of all (unparametrised) future pointing null geodesics in a Lorentzian manifold naturally admits the structure of a smooth contact manifold. Known examples of Lorentzian manifolds having this property include globally hyperbolic spacetimes [\textit{R. J. Low}, Lect. Notes Phys. 692, 35--50 (2006; Zbl 1104.83017)], certain causally simple spacetimes [\textit{J. Hedicke} and \textit{S. Suhr}, Commun. Math. Phys. 375, No. 2, 1561--1577 (2020; Zbl 1437.53053)] and Zollfrei manifolds [\textit{S. Suhr}, J. Topol. Anal. 5, No. 3, 251--260 (2013; Zbl 1282.53033)]. In this paper the authors determine the space of null geodesics for certain compact Zollfrei manifolds diffeomorphic to \(S^2\times S^1 \), i.e., Lorentzian manifolds all of whose null geodesics are closed with the same period. It turns out that in these cases the space of null geodesics is contactomorphic to the standard tight contact structure on Lens spaces of the form \(L(p,1)\). In particular this provides the first examples of spaces of null geodesics that are not diffeomorphic to the spherical co-tangent bundle of some manifold. In the second part of the paper the authors prove a describtion of the space of null geodesics, and a criterion which contact \(3\)-manifolds can appear as spaces of null geodesics of some Lorentzian manifold, in terms of Engel structures.