Causal structure of spacetime and Scott topology

Abstract

In this paper we establish the spacetime manifold as a partially ordered set via the casual structure. We show that these partially ordered sets are naturally continuous as a suitable way below relation can be established via the chronological order. We further consider those classes of spacetimes on which a lattice structure can be endowed by physically defining the joins and meets. By considering the physical properties of null geodesics on the spacetime manifold we show that these lattices are necessarily distributive. These lattices are then continuous as a result of the equivalence between the way below relation and chronology. This enables us to define the Scott topology on the spacetime manifold and describe it on an equal footing as any other continuous lattice. We further show that the Scott topology is a proper subset of Alexandroff topology, which must be the manifold topology for the strongly causal spacetimes, (and hence a coarser topology than Alexandroff). In the process we find some interesting results on the sobriety of these manifolds. We prove that they are necessarily not sober under the Scott topology but regain their sobriety under Alexandroff topology. We also define a dual Scott topology on these manifolds by endowing them with bicontinuous poset structure and show that the join of the Scott topology with the dual is the Alexandroff topology. We also discuss the previous works done in this topic and how the present work generalises those results to some extent.