Calculus of Variations and Geometric Measure Theory

M. Braun - N. Gigli - R. J. McCann - A. Ohanyan - C. Sämann

An elliptic proof of the splitting theorems from Lorentzian geometry

created by gigli on 13 Dec 2025

[BibTeX]

preprint

Inserted: 13 dec 2025

Year: 2024

ArXiv: 2410.12632 PDF

Abstract:

We provide a new proof of the splitting theorems from Lorentzian geometry, in which simplicity is gained by sacrificing linearity of the d'Alembertian to recover ellipticity. We exploit a negative homogeneity (non-uniformly) elliptic $p$-d'Alembert operator for this purpose. This allows us to bring the Eschenburg, Galloway, and Newman Lorentzian splitting theorems into a framework closer to the Cheeger-Gromoll splitting theorem from Riemannian geometry.