Linking, Legendrian linking and causality

DOI10.1112/S0024611503014424MaRDI QIDQ4460741zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors José Natário, Paul Tod

Publication date 29 March 2004

Published in Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0210036

zbMATH Keywords

globally hyperbolic spacetimespacetimeslinkingwavefrontstime orientationlight raysLegendrian submanifodlLow's conjecture

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of differential geometry to physics (53Z05) Space-time singularities, cosmic censorship, etc. (83C75) Contact manifolds (general theory) (53D10)

Abstract: The set N of all null geodesics of a globally hyperbolic (d+1)-dimensional spacetime (M,g) is naturally a smooth (2d-1)-dimensional contact manifold. The sky of an event is the subset of N defined by all null geodesics through that event, and is an embedded Legendrian submanifold of N diffeomorphic to a (d-1)-dimensional sphere. It was conjectured by Low that for d=2 two events are causally related iff their skies are linked (in an appropriate sense). We use the contact structure and knot polynomial calculations to prove this conjecture in certain particular cases, and suggest that for d=3 smooth linking should be replaced with Legendrian linking.

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Cited in

(26)

• Linking and causality in (2   1)-dimensional static spacetimes
• Khovanov homology and causality in spacetimes
• On the space of null geodesics of a spacetime: the compact case, Engel geometry and retrievability
• Affine linking number estimates for the number of times an observer sees a star
• Interval topology in contact geometry
• Refocusing of light rays in space-time
• Do link polynomials detect causality in globally hyperbolic spacetimes?
• Conjectures about virtual Legendrian knots and links
• Mapped null hypersurfaces and Legendrian maps
• Non-negative Legendrian isotopy in \(ST^{\ast}M\)
• The space of light rays: causality and \(L\)-boundary
• Topological properties of manifolds admitting a \(Y^x\)-Riemannian metric
• Conjectures on the relations of linking and causality in causally simple spacetimes
• Pseudo-Riemannian geodesics and billiards
• Legendrian links and déjà vu moments
• The conformal transformation of the night sky
• Causality and Legendrian linking for higher dimensional spacetimes
• Detecting Causality with Symplectic Quandles
• Graded Poisson algebras on bordism groups of garlands
• Causality and skies: is non-refocussing necessary?
• Twistor linking and causal relations in exterior Schwarzschild space
• Linking and causality in globally hyperbolic space-times
• Legendrian links, causality, and the low conjecture
• Twistor linking and causal relations
• Redshift and contact forms
• Toward a general theory of linking invariants

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