Spacetime Ehlers group: Transformation law for the Weyl tensor

The spacetime Ehlers group, which is a symmetry of the Einstein vacuum field equations for strictly stationary spacetimes, is defined and analyzed in a purely spacetime context (without invoking the projection formalism). In this setting, the Ehlers group finds its natural description within an infinite dimensional group of transformations that maps Lorentz metrics into Lorentz metrics and which may be of independent interest. The Ehlers group is shown to be well defined independently of the causal character of the Killing vector (which may become null on arbitrary regions). We analyze which global conditions are required on the spacetime for the existence of the Ehlers group. The transformation law for the Weyl tensor under Ehlers transformations is explicitly obtained. This allows us to study where, and under which circumstances, curvature singularities in the transformed spacetime will arise. The results of the paper are applied to obtain a local characterization of the Kerr-NUT metric.Comment: LaTeX, 25 pages, no figures, uses Amstex. Accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Global and uniqueness properties of stationary and static spacetimes with outer trapped surfaces

Global properties of maximal future Cauchy developments of stationary, m-dimensional asymptotically flat initial data with an outer trapped boundary are analyzed. We prove that, whenever the matter model is well posed and satisfies the null energy condition, the future Cauchy development of the data is a black hole spacetime. More specifically, we show that the future Killing development of the exterior of a sufficiently large sphere in the initial data set can be isometrically embedded in the maximal Cauchy development of the data. In the static setting we prove, by working directly on the initial data set, that all Killing prehorizons are embedded whenever the initial data set has an outer trapped boundary and satisfies the null energy condition. By combining both results we prove a uniqueness theorem for static initial data sets with outer trapped boundary.Comment: 38 pages, 2 figures, Late

On the Penrose inequality for dust null shells in the Minkowski spacetime of arbitrary dimension

A particular, yet relevant, particular case of the Penrose inequality involves null shells propagating in the Minkowski spacetime. Despite previous claims in the literature, the validity of this inequality remains open. In this paper we rewrite this inequality in terms of the geometry of the surface obtained by intersecting the past null cone of the original surface S with a constant time hyperplane and the "time height" function of S over this hyperplane. We also specialize to the case when S lies in the past null cone of a point and show the validity of the corresponding inequality in any dimension (in four dimensions this inequality was proved by Tod). Exploiting properties of convex hypersurfaces in Euclidean space we write down the Penrose inequality in the Minkowski spacetime of arbitrary dimension n+2 as an inequality for two smooth functions on the sphere. We finally obtain a sufficient condition for the validity of the Penrose inequality in the four dimensional Minkowski spacetime and show that this condition is satisfied by a large class of surfaces.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures, Late

Geometry of normal graphs in Euclidean space and applications to the Penrose inequality in Minkowski

The Penrose inequality in Minkowski is a geometric inequality relating the total outer null expansion and the area of closed, connected and spacelike codimension-two surfaces S in the Minkowski spacetime, subject to an additional convexity assumption. In a recent paper, Brendle and Wang find a sufficient condition for the validity of this Penrose inequality in terms of the geometry of the orthogonal projection of S onto a constant time hyperplane. In this work, we study the geometry of hypersurfaces in n-dimensional euclidean space which are normal graphs over other surfaces and relate the intrinsic and extrinsic geometry of the graph with that of the base hypersurface. These results are used to rewrite Brendle and Wang's condition explicitly in terms of the time height function of S over a hyperplane and the geometry of the projection of S along its past null cone onto this hyperplane. We also include, in an Appendix, a self-contained summary of known and new results on the geometry of projections along the Killing direction of codimension two-spacelike surfaces in a strictly static spacetime.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, Late