On the rigidity of cosmological space-times

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, we analyse a family of geometrically well-behaved cosmological space-times $$(V^{n+1},g)$$ ( V n + 1 , g ) , which are foliated by intrinsically isotropic space-like hypersurfaces $$\{M_t\}_{t\in \mathbb {R}}$$ { M t } t ∈ R , which are orthogonal to a family of co-moving observers defined by a global time-like vector field U. In particular, this implies such space-times satisfy several of the well-known criteria for isotropic cosmological space-times, although, in the family in question, the simultaneity spaces $$(M_t,g_t)$$ ( M t , g t ) associated with U can have as sectional curvature a sign-changing function k(t). Being this clearly impossible in the FLRW family of standard cosmological space-times, it motivates us to revisit the geometric rigidity consequences of different definitions of isotropy available in the literature. In this analysis, we divide such definition according to whether the isometries involved are taken to be (local) space-time (STI space-times) or (local) space isometries (SI space-times) of $$(M_t,g_t)$$ ( M t , g t ) for each t. This subtlety will be shown to be critical, proving that only when space-time isometries are considered one obtains the well-known rigidity properties associated with isotropic cosmological space-times. In particular, SI space-times will be shown to be a strictly larger class than the STI ones, allowing a family of basic cosmological curvature change models which are not even locally isometric to any FLRW space-time.