Concavity of spacetimes
Abstract
Motivated by recent breathtaking progress in the synthetic study of Lorentzian geometry, we investigate the local concavity of time separation functions on Finsler spacetimes as a Lorentzian counterpart to Busemann’s convexity in metric geometry. We show that a Berwald spacetime is locally concave if and only if its flag curvature is nonnegative in timelike directions. We also give another characterization of nonnegative flag curvature by the convexity of future (or past) capsules, inspired by Kristály–Kozma’s result in the positive definite case. These characterizations are new even for Lorentzian manifolds.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
Relativity and Gravitational Theory
Advanced Mathematical Theories and Applications
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A Mathematics
- Pages
- 1–22
- Publication date
- 18 February 2026
- Language
- EN