scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1092916

Publication date 23 April 1998

geodesics global Lorentzian geometry variational methods

Geodesics in global differential geometry (53C22) Global differential geometry of Lorentz manifolds, manifolds with indefinite metrics (53C50) Variational problems in applications to the theory of geodesics (problems in one independent variable) (58E10)

Review text

The present article is a review of the main results obtained by an Italian research group concerned with the calculus of variations applied to the study of the global geometry of a relativistic spacetime. The paper is a written version of a conference held by the author at the 15th Congress of the Unione Matematica Italiana, U.M.I., in 1995, and it is addressed to a wide audience of mathematicians. The exposition is willingly informal, and very little knowledge from Riemannian and semi-Riemannian geometry is assumed by the author. After a historical introduction, the author discusses in particular the problem of the geodetical connectedness for a Lorentzian manifold. It is presented the case of a manifold given by an orthogonal splitting in a sketchy way, and then the case of a regular static manifold in more detail. The article includes a rich and updated bibliography of recent contributions in the field.

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