New characterization of Robertson-Walker geometries involving a single timelike curve

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Mars, Marc, Vera, Raül
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Mars, Marc
Vera, Raül
author_facet Mars, Marc
Vera, Raül
contents Our aim in this paper is two-fold. We establish a novel geometric characterization of the Roberson-Walker (RW) spacetime and, along the process, we find a canonical form of the RW metric associated to an arbitrary timelike curve and an arbitrary space frame. A known characterization establishes that a spacetime foliated by constant curvature leaves whose orthogonal flow (the cosmological flow) is geodesic, shear-free, and with constant expansion on each leaf, is RW. We generalize this characterization by relaxing the condition on the expansion. We show it suffices to demand that the spatial gradient and Laplacian of the expansion on a single arbitrary timelike curve vanish. In General Relativity these local conditions are equivalent to demanding that the energy flux measured by the cosmological flow, as well as its divergence, are zero on a single arbitrary timelike curve. The proof allows us to construct canonically adapted coordinates to the arbitrary curve, thus well-fitted to an observer with an arbitrary motion with respect to the cosmological flow.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2307_14457
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle New characterization of Robertson-Walker geometries involving a single timelike curve
Mars, Marc
Vera, Raül
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Our aim in this paper is two-fold. We establish a novel geometric characterization of the Roberson-Walker (RW) spacetime and, along the process, we find a canonical form of the RW metric associated to an arbitrary timelike curve and an arbitrary space frame. A known characterization establishes that a spacetime foliated by constant curvature leaves whose orthogonal flow (the cosmological flow) is geodesic, shear-free, and with constant expansion on each leaf, is RW. We generalize this characterization by relaxing the condition on the expansion. We show it suffices to demand that the spatial gradient and Laplacian of the expansion on a single arbitrary timelike curve vanish. In General Relativity these local conditions are equivalent to demanding that the energy flux measured by the cosmological flow, as well as its divergence, are zero on a single arbitrary timelike curve. The proof allows us to construct canonically adapted coordinates to the arbitrary curve, thus well-fitted to an observer with an arbitrary motion with respect to the cosmological flow.
title New characterization of Robertson-Walker geometries involving a single timelike curve
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.14457