New perspectives on the d'Alembertian from general relativity. An invitation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Braun, Mathias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Braun, Mathias
author_facet Braun, Mathias
contents This survey has multiple objectives. First, we motivate and review a new distributional notion of the d'Alembertian from mathematical relativity, more precisely, a nonlinear $p$-version thereof, where $p$ is a nonzero number less than one. This operator comes from natural Lagrangian actions introduced relatively recently. Unlike its classical linear yet hyperbolic counterpart, it is nonlinear yet has elliptic characteristics. Second, we describe recent comparison estimates for the $p$-d'Alembertian of Lorentz distance functions (notably a point or a spacelike hypersurface). Their new contribution implied by prior works on optimal transport through spacetime is a control of the timelike cut locus. Third, we illustrate exact representation formulas for these $p$-d'Alembertians employing methods from convex geometry. Fourth, several applications and open problems are presented.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_19071
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle New perspectives on the d'Alembertian from general relativity. An invitation
Braun, Mathias
Differential Geometry
Mathematical Physics
Analysis of PDEs
Metric Geometry
28A50, 51K10 (Primary), 35J92, 49Q22, 51F99, 53C21, 53C50, 83C75 (Secondary)
This survey has multiple objectives. First, we motivate and review a new distributional notion of the d'Alembertian from mathematical relativity, more precisely, a nonlinear $p$-version thereof, where $p$ is a nonzero number less than one. This operator comes from natural Lagrangian actions introduced relatively recently. Unlike its classical linear yet hyperbolic counterpart, it is nonlinear yet has elliptic characteristics. Second, we describe recent comparison estimates for the $p$-d'Alembertian of Lorentz distance functions (notably a point or a spacelike hypersurface). Their new contribution implied by prior works on optimal transport through spacetime is a control of the timelike cut locus. Third, we illustrate exact representation formulas for these $p$-d'Alembertians employing methods from convex geometry. Fourth, several applications and open problems are presented.
title New perspectives on the d'Alembertian from general relativity. An invitation
topic Differential Geometry
Mathematical Physics
Analysis of PDEs
Metric Geometry
28A50, 51K10 (Primary), 35J92, 49Q22, 51F99, 53C21, 53C50, 83C75 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.19071