Flat Lorentzian Lie groups: A complete description

Abstract

In this paper, we establish a complete structural description of flat Lorentzian Lie groups, i.e., Lie groups endowed with a flat left invariant Lorentzian metric, thereby resolving a long-standing open problem in the theory of pseudo-Riemannian Lie groups. Our main result shows that any flat Lorentzian Lie group either admits a timelike parallel left-invariant vector field or is of Kundt type, and that in both cases the underlying Lie algebra falls into one of six explicit classes. A key ingredient of the proof is a refined analysis of the double extension process, which reveals that all flat Lorentzian Lie algebras arise - directly or in a generalized sense - from flat Euclidean ones. As a consequence, we obtain easily a complete classification in dimensions three and four, recovering and unifying several previously known partial results.

50 pages, 9 Tables, third version, many typos an errors corrected. Submitted