Lorentz and semi-Riemannian spaces with Alexandrov curvature bounds (Q939676)

The comparison theory for the Riccati equation has proved to be a very powerful tool in the comparison geometry for Riemannian manifolds. Alexandrov spaces are geodesic metric spaces with curvature bounds in the sense of local triangle comparisons. Certain Lorentzian warped products possess a global triangle comparison property that is not just time-like, but is fully analogous to the Alexandrov one. The comparisons are on signed lengths of geodesics, where the time-like sign is taken to be negative. The length of either geodesics or vectors is always signed. The model spaces are \(S_K\), \(M_K\), or \(-S_K\), where \(M_K\) is the simply connected \(2\)-dimensional Lorentz space form of constant curvature \(K\), \(S_K\) is the simply connected \(2\)-dimensional Riemannian space form of constant curvature \(K\), and \(-S_K\) is \(S_K\) with the sign of the metric switched, a space of constant curvature \(-K\). For any semi-Riemannian manifold, a tangent section is called space-like if the metric is definite there, and time-like if it is non-degenerate and indefinite. It is said that \(R\geq K\), if the space-like sectional curvatures are \(\geq K\) and timelike ones are \(\leq K\). For \(R\leq K\), time-like and space-like are reversed. \(U\) is said to be a normal neighborhood if it is a normal coordinate neighborhood of each of its points. If, in addition, the triangles satisfy size bounds for \(K\), then \(U\) is normal for \(K\). In this paper, the authors show that if a semi-Riemannian manifold satisfies \(R\geq K (R\leq K)\) and \(U\) is a normal neighborhood for \(K\), then the signed length of the geodesic between two points on any geodesic triangle of \(U\) is at least (at most) that for the corresponding points on the model triangle in \(S_K\), \(M_K\), or \(-S_K\). Conversely, if triangle comparison holds in some normal neighborhood of each point of a semi-Riemannian manifold, then \(R\geq K (R\leq K)\).