Causal continuity in degenerate spacetimes

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/16/11/303MaRDI QIDQ4935693zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors

Publication date 31 January 2000

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9901063

zbMATH Keywords

Morse functionRiemannian metricchange of spatial topology

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Global differential geometry of Lorentz manifolds, manifolds with indefinite metrics (53C50) Abstract critical point theory (Morse theory, Lyusternik-Shnirel'man theory, etc.) in infinite-dimensional spaces (58E05) Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05)

Abstract: A change of spatial topology in a causal, compact spacetime cannot occur when the metric is globally Lorentzian. One can however construct a causal metric from a Riemannian metric and a Morse function on the background cobordism manifold, which is Lorentzian almost everywhere except that it is degenerate at each critical point of the function. We investigate causal structure in the neighbourhood of such a degeneracy, when the auxiliary Riemannian metric is taken to be Cartesian flat in appropriate coordinates. For these geometries, we verify Borde and Sorkin's conjecture that causal discontinuity occurs if and only if the Morse index is 1 or n-1.

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