Null-geodesics are used in general relativity to describe the motion of light in a Lorentzian spacetime. Inspired by Penrose's work on twistor theory, Low showed that the space of all null-geodesics, provided it is a smooth manifold, carries a natural contact structure. Moreover he observed that in the case of a globally hyperbolic spacetime the space of null-geodesics is always contactomorphic to a standard co-sphere bundle. After a short introduction to Lorentzian geometry I will show how this result can be generalised to certain non-globally hyperbolic spacetimes using Giroux’s theory of convex surfaces and results from Chekanov, van Koert and Schlenk.
Mittwoch, den 30. Oktober 2019 um 11.00-13.00 Uhr Uhr, in Mathematikon, INF 205, SR 9 Mittwoch, den 30. Oktober 2019 at 11.00-13.00 Uhr, in Mathematikon, INF 205, SR 9
Der Vortrag folgt der Einladung von The lecture takes place at invitation by Prof. Peter Albers