Normal forms of a generic real mixed analytic metric (Q954084)

A metric \(g\) defined in a plane domain which is Riemannian in one region and Lorentzian in the other is called a mixed metric, since it changes its character. The aim of this paper is to study the existence of a normal form of the metric locally in a neighbourhood of a point belonging to the common boundary of the two regions mentioned before. The approach is an analogue of the problem of existence of isothermal coordinates in the classical setting. The study of isotropic curves for a mixed metric is related with the theory of surfaces in \(\mathbb R^3\). It is shown that generically there exists an unique conformal model \(du^2+v\,dv^2.\) The author proves that there are some special points where the space of conformal models is of infinite dimension. In order to classify the conformal models admissible pairs are used.