Lorentzian Geodesic Flows and Interpolation between Hypersurfaces in Euclidean Spaces

Abstract

We consider geodesic flows between hypersurfaces in $\R^n$. However, rather than consider using geodesics in $\R^n$, which are straight lines, we consider an induced flow using geodesics between the tangent spaces of the hypersurfaces viewed as affine hyperplanes. For naturality, we want the geodesic flow to be invariant under rigid transformations and homotheties. Consequently, we do not use the dual projective space, as the geodesic flow in this space is not preserved under translations. Instead we give an alternate approach using a Lorentzian space, which is semi-Riemannian with a metric of index $1$. For this space for points corresponding to affine hyperplanes in $\R^n$, we give a formula for the geodesic between two such points. As a consequence, we show the geodesic flow is preserved by rigid transformations and homotheties of $\R^n$. Furthermore, we give a criterion that a vector field in a smoothly varying family of hyperplanes along a curve yields a Lorentzian parallel vector field for the corresponding curve in the Lorentzian space. As a result this provides a method to extend an orthogonal frame in one affine hyperplane to a smoothly "Lorentzian varying" family of orthogonal frames in a family of affine hyperplanes along a smooth curve, as well as a interpolating between two such frames with a smooth " minimally Lorentzian varying" family of orthogonal frames. We further give sufficient conditions that the Lorentzian flow from a hypersurface is nonsingular and that the resulting corresponding flow in $\R^n$ is nonsingular. This is illustrated for surfaces in $\R^3$.