General Relativity and Gravitation - Topical Collection "Singularity theorems, causality, and all that (SCRI21)"

Complete collection of 19 articles now online (this opens in a new tab)

16 February 2023

Roger Penrose shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 for "the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity", that is, for his 1965 gravitational collapse singularity theorem. Jointly with his 1963 study of the conformal boundary, Penrose's 1965 theorem marked the beginning of causality methods in mathematical relativity giving impulse to mathematical relativity itself.

In 2021, an online meeting (this opens in a new tab) honored Roger Penrose's accomplishments in mathematical relativity, particularly his use of global differential geometric methods in general relativity. Given the extent of Penrose's contributions, the idea was to focus on themes more closely related to the Nobel Prize motivation and to Penrose's mathematical methods:

1) Causality theory and singularity theorems (including abstract frameworks, low differentiability studies, weakened energy conditions), 2) Causal/conformal boundaries, 3) Cosmic censorship (mostly from a differential geometric viewpoint). 
 

This article collection (this opens in a new tab) is based on peer-reviewed contributions from this meeting, which gathered researchers who use Penrose's differential geometric methods or who have an interest in them and some perspectives to share. We wish that it summarizes the present status of mathematical relativity research in the above areas. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the Guest Editors Ettore Minguzzi, Piotr T. Chruściel, Greg Galloway, Michael Kunzinger & Roland Steinbauer.