{"title":"New characterization of Robertson–Walker geometries involving a single timelike curve","authors":"Marc Mars, Raül Vera","doi":"10.1088/1751-8121/ad6ab6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Our aim in this paper is two-fold. We establish a novel geometric characterization of the Robertson–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 cosmological 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.","PeriodicalId":16763,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/ad6ab6","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PHYSICS, MATHEMATICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Our aim in this paper is two-fold. We establish a novel geometric characterization of the Robertson–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 cosmological 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.
期刊介绍:
Publishing 50 issues a year, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical is a major journal of theoretical physics reporting research on the mathematical structures that describe fundamental processes of the physical world and on the analytical, computational and numerical methods for exploring these structures.