Mean Curvature, Singularities and Time Functions in Cosmology

Abstract

In this contribution, we study spacetimes of cosmological interest, without making any symmetry assumptions. We prove a rigid Hawking singularity theorem for positive cosmological constant, which sharpens known results. In particular, it implies that any spacetime with $\mathrm{Ric}\ge -ng$ in timelike directions and containing a compact Cauchy hypersurface with mean curvature $H\ge n$ is timelike incomplete. We also study the properties of cosmological time and volume functions, addressing questions such as: When do they satisfy the regularity condition? When are the level sets Cauchy hypersurfaces? What can one say about the mean curvature of the level sets? This naturally leads to consideration of Hawking type singularity theorems for Cauchy surfaces satisfying mean curvature inequalities in a certain weak sense.

15 pages, 2 figures. Changes in v2: typos fixed and small improvements made