Future Singularities and Completeness in Cosmology

TL;DR

This paper reviews the conditions and classifications of cosmological singularities in general relativity, analyzing geodesic incompleteness and categorizing singularities in isotropic universes using Bel-Robinson energy.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive classification of cosmological singularities in isotropic universes and introduces new types based on tensorial analysis and energy considerations.

Findings

Identifies necessary and sufficient conditions for geodesic incompleteness.

Classifies known and predicts new singularity types in isotropic universes.

Uses Bel-Robinson energy to analyze asymptotic field properties near singularities.

Abstract

We review recent work on the existence and nature of cosmological singularities that can be formed during the evolution of generic as well as specific cosmological spacetimes in general relativity. We first discuss necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of geodesically incomplete spacetimes based on a tensorial analysis of the geodesic equations. We then classify the possible singularities of isotropic globally hyperbolic universes using the Bel-Robinson slice energy that closely monitors the asymptotic properties of fields near the singularity. This classification includes all known forms of spacetime singularities in isotropic universes and also predicts new types.