Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

206 submissions , 164 unreviewed
5,103 questions , 2,249 unanswered
5,355 answers , 22,798 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

  Possible obstructions to global Wick-rotation in distinguishing spacetimes

+ 5 like - 0 dislike
63 views

Take the time-orientable $3+1$ dimensional spacetime $(M,g)$ that is locally Wick-rotatable at any arbitrary point $p \in M$ to a Riemannian manifold $(N,h)$.

Local Wick-rotatability of $(M,g)$ implies that its Riemann curvature tensor and Weyl tensor are both locally purely electric, which means the magnetic part of the Riemann curvature tensor acts as an obstruction to local Wick-rotation.

Since the manifold is time-oriented, one can take a globally defined time-like vector field $u$ over the manifold.

In $3+1$ dimensions one can equivalently define Pure Electricity by introduction of the tensor: $$H_{ab} = \frac{1}{2} \epsilon_{acef} {C^{ef}}_{bd} u^c u^d$$

as vanishing of the magnetic part of the Weyl tensor $C_{-}$ locally and so in our case everywhere locally (globally):

$${(C_{-})^{ab}}_{cd} = 2 \epsilon^{abef} u_{e} u_{[c} H_{d]f} + 2 \epsilon_{cdef} u^e u^{[a} H^{b]f}=0 $$


Suppose the causal structure introduced by the Lorentzian metric $g$ is that of a "both past and future distinguishing" spacetime.

What is the nature of a possible obstruction to the global Wick-rotation of the manifold $(M,g)$ to $(N,h)$?

Can one give a few examples of locally but not globally Wick-rotatable spacetimes that are distinguishing (both past and future together), at least?


PS: Whatever the obstruction might be, it should appear on the way of gluing the locally Wick-rotatable neighbourhoods to each other to form a global Wick-rotation. Which to me sounds like sheaf theory or Algebraic topology stuff. Though I am not by any measure an expert.

This post imported from StackExchange MathOverflow at 2024-11-12 21:45 (UTC), posted by SE-user Bastam Tajik
asked Jun 19 in Theoretical Physics by Bastam Tajik (25 points) [ no revision ]
retagged Nov 12

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar\varnothing$sicsOverflow
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...