arXiv research

Generic singularities found in spacetimes with weakly trapped submanifolds.

Study rigidity in Penrose's singularity theorem with weakly trapped surfaces.

Marginally outer trapped surfaces are widely considered as the best quasi-local replacements for event horizons of black holes in General Relativity. However, this equivalence is far from being proved, even in stationary and static situations. In this paper we study an important aspect of this equivalence, namely wheth…

Rigidity results for initial data sets related to the positive mass theorem.

Let (M, g, k) be an initial data set for the Einstein equations of general relativity. We prove that there exist solutions of the Plateau problem for marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) that are stable in the sense of MOTSs. This answers a question of G. Galloway and N. O'Murchadha and is an ingredient in the pro…

In a recent paper (gr-qc/0509107) the author and Rick Schoen obtained a generalization to higher dimensions of a classical result of Hawking concerning the topology of black holes. It was proved that, apart from certain exceptional circumstances, cross sections of the event horizon, in the stationary case, and 'weakly …

Study shows genericity of singularities in spacetimes with weakly trapped submanifolds.

New rigidity results for submanifolds in GRW spacetimes.

Eight different refinements of trapped surfaces are proposed, of three basic types, each intended as potential stability conditions. Minimal trapped surfaces are strictly minimal with respect to the dual expansion vector. Outer trapped surfaces have positivity of a certain curvature, related to surface gravity. Increas…

Study of marginally trapped surfaces in a perturbed Schwarzschild spacetime.

We investigate the geometric properties of marginally trapped surfaces (surfaces which have null mean curvature vector) in the spaces of oriented geodesics of Euclidean 3-space and hyperbolic 3-space, endowed with their canonical neutral Kaehler structures. We prove that every rank one surface in these four manifolds i…

The paper introduces canonical parameters for marginally trapped surfaces in Minkowski space.

A marginally trapped surface in the four-dimensional Minkowski space is a spacelike surface whose mean curvature vector is lightlike at each point. In the present paper we find all marginally trapped surfaces with pointwise 1-type Gauss map. We prove that a marginally trapped surface is of pointwise 1-type Gauss map if…

This paper considers some fundamental questions concerning marginally trapped surfaces, or apparent horizons, in Cauchy data sets for the Einstein equation. An area estimate for outermost marginally trapped surfaces is proved. The proof makes use of an existence result for marginal surfaces, in the presence of barriers…

Overview of marginally trapped surfaces in various spacetimes.

Paper proves trapped surface formation for EMCSF system without symmetry assumptions.

We show that any vacuum initial data set containing a marginally outer trapped surface S and satisfying a "no KIDs" condition can be perturbed near S so that S becomes strictly outer trapped in the new vacuum initial data set. This, together with the results in [9], gives a precise sense in which generic initial data c…

No trapped surfaces can form under low-regularity bounds in certain spacetimes.

In the present paper we provide new examples of marginally trapped surfaces and tubes in FLRW spacetimes by using a basic relation between these objects and CMC surfaces in 3-manifolds. We also provide a new method to construct marginally trapped surfaces in closed FLRW spacetimes, which is based on the classical Hopf …

We derive integral and sup-estimates for the curvature of stably marginally outer trapped surfaces in a sliced space-time. The estimates bound the shear of a marginally outer trapped surface in terms of the intrinsic and extrinsic curvature of a slice containing the surface. These estimates are well adapted to situatio…

New integrable systems for marginally trapped surfaces in 4D Lorentz-Minkowski space.

Paper proves trapped surface formation for Einstein-Maxwell-charged scalar field system.

A marginally trapped surface in the four-dimensional Minkowski space is a spacelike surface whose mean curvature vector is lightlike at each point. We introduce meridian surfaces of parabolic type as one-parameter systems of meridians of a rotational hypersurface with lightlike axis in Minkowski 4-space and find their …

Study shows no closed trapped submanifolds can be tangent to certain spacelike hypersurfaces.

The concept of closed trapped surface is of paramount importance in General Relativity and other gravitational theories. However, it is a purely geometrical object. With the aim of bringing this concept to closer attention by the mathematical community, I introduce the generalized idea of trapped submanifold by using t…

We study an area minimization problem for spacelike zero mean curvature surfaces in four dimensional Lorentz-Minkowski space. The areas of these surfaces are compared of with the areas of certain marginally trapped surfaces having the same boundary values.

As discussed in the paper, in a matter-filled spacetime, perhaps with positive cosmological constant, a stable marginally outer trapped 2-sphere must satisfy a certain area inquality. Namely, its area must be bounded above by $4π/c$, where $c > 0$ is a lower bound on a natural energy momentum term. In this note we cons…

A marginally trapped surface in the four-dimensional Minkowski space is a spacelike surface whose mean curvature vector is lightlike at each point. We associate a geometrically determined moving frame field to such a surface and using the derivative formulas for this frame field we obtain seven invariant functions. Our…

We solve the Plateau problem for marginally outer trapped surfaces in general Cauchy data sets. We employ the Perron method and tools from geometric measure theory to force and control a blow-up of Jang's equation. Substantial new geometric insights regarding the lower order properties of marginally outer trapped surfa…

New method shows trapped surfaces form in geodesic foliation.

In a matter-filled spacetime, perhaps with positive cosmological constant, a stable marginally outer trapped 2-sphere must satisfy a certain area inequality. Namely, as discussed in the paper, its area must be bounded above by $4π/c$, where $c > 0$ is a lower bound on a natural energy-momentum term. We then consider th…

Study shows how electromagnetic and gravitational waves can form trapped surfaces.

We introduce a natural generalization of marginally outer trapped surfaces, called immersed marginally outer trapped surfaces, and prove that three dimensional asymptotically flat initial data sets either contain such surfaces or are diffeomorphic to R^3. We establish a generalization of the Penrose singularity theorem…

Study on trapped submanifolds in spacetimes, proving rigidity and non-existence results.

Klainerman, Luk and Rodnianski derived an anisotropic criterion for formation of trapped surfaces in vacuum, extending the original trapped surface formation theorem of Christodoulou. The effort to understand their result led us to study the intersection of a hyperplane with a lightcone in the Minkowski spacetime. For …

In this article we investigate the restrictions imposed by the dominant energy condition (DEC) on the topology and conformal type of \textsl{possibly non-compact} marginally outer-trapped surfaces (thus extending Hawking's classical theorem on the topology of black holes). We first prove that an unbounded, stable margi…

Study stability and rigidity of axisymmetric marginally outer trapped surfaces.

Paper bounds mass of 3D Einstein data using spacetime harmonic functions.

Researchers create initial data for multiple collapsing boson stars.

Study of mean curvature flow on null hypersurfaces leading to MOTS.

New method constructs spacelike data leading to trapped surfaces.

A spacelike surface $S\subset \mathbb{S}^4_1$ is marginally trapped if its mean curvature vector is lightlike. On any oriented spacelike surface $S \subset \mathbb{S}^4_1$ we show that a choice of orientation of the normal bundle $ν(S)$ determines a smooth map $G: S \to \mathbb{S}^3$ which we call the null Gauss map of…

In recent work, the notion of Double Convexity for a foliation of a conical null hypersurface was introduced to give a proof, if satisfied, of the Null Penrose Inequality. Double Convexity constrains the geometry of a Marginally Outer Trapped Surface (MOTS), called a quasi-round MOTS. In the first part of this paper, f…

Consider a quantum particle trapped between a curved layer of constant width built over a complete, non-compact, $\mathcal C^2$ smooth surface embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$. We assume that the surface is asymptotically flat in the sense that the second fundamental form vanishes at infinity, and that the surface is not tot…

Small deformations of marginally (outer) trapped surfaces are considered by using their stability operator. In the case of spherical symmetry, one can use these deformations on any marginally trapped round sphere to prove several interesting results. The concept of 'core' of a black hole is introduced: it is a minimal …

Weakly Einstein Kähler surfaces are characterized and classified.

The scattering data of a Riemannian manifold with boundary record the incoming and outgoing directions of each geodesic passing through. We show that the scattering data of a generic Riemannian surface with no trapped geodesics and no conjugate points determine the lengths of geodesics. Counterexamples exists when trap…

The lightlike geometry of codimension two spacelike submanifolds in Lorentz-Minkowski space has been developed in [Izumiya, S. and Romero Fuster, M. C. Selecta Mathematica (NS), 13 23--55 (2007)] which is a natural Lorentzian analogue of the classical Euclidean differential geometry of hypersurfaces. In this paper we i…