Contact Lorentzian manifolds

Contact structures with associated pseudo-Riemannian metrics were studied by D. Perrone and the present author (2010) in [8]. We focus here on contact Lorentzian structures, emphasizing their relationship and analogies with respect to the Riemannian case.     

Lorentzian similarity manifolds

An (m+2)-dimensional Lorentzian similarity manifold M is an affine flat manifold locally modeled on (G,ℝ ^m+2), where G = ℝ ^m+2 ⋊ (O(m+1, 1)×ℝ⁺). M is also a conformally flat Lorentzian manifold because G is isomorphic to the stabilizer of the Lorentzian group PO(m+2, 2) of the Lorentz model S ^m+1,1. We discuss the properties of compact Lorentzian similarity manifolds using developing maps and holonomy representations.     

Four-dimensional homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds

Four-dimensional locally homogeneous Riemannian manifolds are either locally symmetric or locally isometric to Riemannian Lie groups. We determine how and to what extent this result holds in the Lorentzian case.     

Three-dimensional semi-symmetric homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds

Because of the different possible forms (Segre types) of the Ricci operator, semi-symmetry assumption for the curvature of a Lorentzian manifold turns out to have very different consequences with respect to the Riemannian case. In fact, a semi-symmetric homogeneous Riemannian manifold is necessarily symmetric, while we find some three-dimensional homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds which are semi-symmetric but not symmetric. The complete classification of three-dimensional semi-symmetric homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds is obtained.     

Closed similarity Lorentzian affine manifolds

A affine manifold is an -dimensional affine manifold whose linear holonomy lies in the similarity Lorentzian group but not in the Lorentzian group. In this paper, we show that a compact affine manifold is incomplete. Let be the Lorentz form, and the map on defined by . We show that for a compact radiant affine manifold , if a connected component of intersects the image of the universal cover of by the developing map, then either or a connected component of , where is a hyperplane, is contained in this image.

     

Lorentzian geometry of globally framed manifolds

A new class of globally framed manifolds (carrying a Lorentz metric) is introduced to establish a relation between the spacetime geometry and framed structures. We show that strongly causal (in particular, globally hyperbolic) spacetimes can carry a regular framed structure. As examples, we present a class of spacetimes of general relativity, having an electromagnetic field, endowed with a framed structure and a causal spacetime with a nonregular contact structure. This paper opens a few new problems, of geometric/physical significance, for further study.     

Conformal reference frames for Lorentzian manifolds

We define a conformal reference frame, i.e., a special projection of the six-dimensional sky bundle of a Lorentzian manifold (or the five-dimensional twistor space) to a three-dimensional manifold. We construct an example, a conformal compactification, for Minkowski space. Based on the complex structure on the skies, we define the celestial transformation of Lorentzian vectors, a kind of spinor correspondence. We express a 1-form generating the contact structure in the twistor space (when it is smooth) explicitly as a form taking line-bundle values. We prove a theorem on the projection of this 1-form to the fiberwise normal bundle of a reference frame; its corollary is an equation for the flow of time.     

Locally conformally flat Lorentzian quasi-Einstein manifolds

We show that locally conformally flat quasi-Einstein manifolds are globally conformally equivalent to a space form or locally isometric to a Robertson-Walker spacetime or a $pp$ -wave.     

On the spectral flow in Lorentzian manifolds

In this paper we use functional analytical techniques to determine the differential equation satisfied by the eigenvalues of a smooth family of Fredholm operators, obtained from the index form along a Lorentzian geodesic. The formula is then applied to the study of the evolution of the index function, and, using a perturbation argument, we prove a version of the classical Morse index theorem for stationary Lorentzian manifolds. Received: January 31, 2000; in final form: March 13, 2002?Published online: February 20, 2003 The second author is partially sponsored by CNPq (Brazil), Grant 200615/01-7.     

Einstein-like metrics on three-dimensional homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds

We completely classify three-dimensional homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds, equipped with Einstein-like metrics. Similarly to the Riemannian case (E. Abbena et al., Simon Stevin Quart J Pure Appl Math 66:173–182, 1992), if (M, g) is a three-dimensional homogeneous Lorentzian manifold, the Ricci tensor of (M, g) being cyclic-parallel (respectively, a Codazzi tensor) is related to natural reductivity (respectively, symmetry) of (M, g). However, some exceptional examples arise. The author is supported by funds of MURST, GNSAGA and the University of Lecce.     

Volume preserving curvature flows in Lorentzian manifolds

Let N be a (n + 1)-dimensional globally hyperbolic Lorentzian manifold with a compact Cauchy hypersurface ${\mathcal{S}_{0}}$ and F a curvature function, either the mean curvature H, the root of the second symmetric polynomial ${{\sigma}_{2}=\sqrt{H_{2}}}$ or a curvature function of class (K*), a class of curvature functions which includes the nth root of the Gaussian curvature ${{\sigma}_{n}= K^{\frac{1}{n}}}$ . We consider curvature flows with curvature function F and a volume preserving term and prove long time existence of the flow and exponential convergence of the corresponding graphs in the C ^∞-topology to a hypersurface of constant F-curvature, provided there are barriers. Furthermore we examine stability properties and foliations of constant F-curvature hypersurfaces.     

On the full holonomy group of Lorentzian manifolds

The classification of restricted holonomy groups of \(n\) -dimensional Lorentzian manifolds was obtained about ten years ago. However, up to now, not much is known about the structure of the full holonomy group. In this paper we study the full holonomy group of Lorentzian manifolds with a parallel null line bundle. Based on the classification of the restricted holonomy groups of such manifolds, we prove several structure results about the full holonomy. We establish a construction method for manifolds with disconnected holonomy starting from a Riemannian manifold and a properly discontinuous group of isometries. This leads to a variety of examples, most of them being quotients of pp-waves with disconnected holonomy, including a non-flat Lorentzian manifold with infinitely generated holonomy group. Furthermore, we classify the full holonomy groups of solvable Lorentzian symmetric spaces and of Lorentzian manifolds with a parallel null spinor. Finally, we construct examples of globally hyperbolic manifolds with complete spacelike Cauchy hypersurfaces, disconnected full holonomy and a parallel spinor.     

Hypersurfaces of prescribed mean curvature in Lorentzian manifolds

We give a new existence proof for closed hypersurfaces of prescribed mean curvature in Lorentzian manifolds. Received April 12, 1999; in final form July 29, 1999 / Published online July 3, 2000     

Iteration of closed geodesics in stationary Lorentzian manifolds

Following the lines of Bott in (Commun Pure Appl Math 9:171–206, 1956), we study the Morse index of the iterates of a closed geodesic in stationary Lorentzian manifolds, or, more generally, of a closed Lorentzian geodesic that admits a timelike periodic Jacobi field. Given one such closed geodesic γ, we prove the existence of a locally constant integer valued map Λ_γ on the unit circle with the property that the Morse index of the iterated γ ^N is equal, up to a correction term ε_γ∈{0,1}, to the sum of the values of Λ_γ at the N-th roots of unity. The discontinuities of Λ_γ occur at a finite number of points of the unit circle, that are special eigenvalues of the linearized Poincaré map of γ. We discuss some applications of the theory.