Abstract
Recent work alludes to various 'controversies' associated with signature change in general relativity and claims to resolve them. As we have argued previously, these are in fact disagreements about the (often unstated) assumptions underlying various possible approaches. We demonstrate that the issue has not been resolved and the choice between approaches remains open.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Mansouri, Reza, and Nozari, Koruosh. (2000). A New Distributional Approach to Signature Change, Gen. Rel. Grav. 32, 253–269.
Dray, Tevian, Manogue, Corinne A., and Tucker, Robin W. (1991). Particle Production from Signature Change, Gen. Rel. Grav., 23, 967–971.
Dray, Tevian, Manogue, Corinne A., and Tucker, Robin W. (1993). The Scalar Field Equation in the Presence of Signature Change, Phys. Rev. D 48, 2587–2590.
Hellaby, Charles, and Dray, Tevian. (1994). Failure of Standard Conservation Laws at a Classical Change of Signature, Phys. Rev. D 49, 5096–5104.
Ellis, G., Sumeruk, A., Coule, D., and Hellaby, C. (1992). Change of Signature in Classical Relativity, Class. Quant. Grav. 9, 1535–1554.
Ellis, G. F. R. (1992). Covariant Change of Signature in Classical Relativity, Gen. Rel. Grav. 24, 1047–1068.
Carfora, Mauro, and Ellis, George. (1995). The Geometry of Classical Change of Signature, Intl. J. Mod. Phys. D 4, 175–188.
Hayward, Sean A. (1994). Weak Solutions Across a Change of Signature, Class. Quantum Grav. 11, L87–L90.
Tevian Dray, Manogue, Corinne A., and Tucker, Robin W. (1995). Boundary Conditions for the Scalar Field in the Presence of Signature Change, Class. Quantum Grav. 12, 2767–2777.
Hayward, Sean A. (1995). “Failure of Standard Conservation Laws at a Classical Change of Signature,” Phys. Rev. D 52, 7331–7332.
Hellaby, Charles, and Dray, Tevian. (1995). Reply Comment: Comparison of Approaches to Classical Signature Change, Phys. Rev. D 52, 7333–7339.
Hayward, Sean A. (1992). Signature Change in General Relativity, Class. Quant. Grav. 9, 1851–1862; erratum: (1992). Class. Quant. Grav. 9, 2543. 4We note that the cosmological constant jumps from 3/α 2– to 3 α 2+ in the above example, but this is not a problem, as discontinuities in the matter occur with the usual (Lorentzian to Lorentzian) boundary conditions, whereas at a signature change the whole nature of physics changes and causality suddenly appears. Indeed a jump is a much weaker singularity than a surface layer, which MN allow (top half of p. 266). 5 It should be emphasised that the surface effects found in [4] are delta functions in the conservation laws, not in the Einstein ?matter tensor. Dray, Ellis, and Hellaby 1046
Kossowski, M., and Kriele, M. (1993). Smooth and Discontinuous Signature Type Change in General Relativity, Class. Quant. Grav. 10, 2363–2371.
Dray, Tevian (1996). Einstein' Equations in the Presence of Signature Change, J. Math. Phys. 37, 5627–5636.
Dray, Tevian, Ellis, George, Hellaby, Charles, and Manogue, Corinne A. (1997). Gravity and Signature Change, Gen. Rel. Grav. 29, 591–597.
Darmois, G. (1927). Mémorial des Sciences Mathématiques, Fascicule 25, Gauthier-Villars, Paris.
Waseem Kamleh, Signature Changing Space-times and the New Generalised Functions, grqc ?0004057.
Dray, Tevian, and Hellaby, Charles. (1996). Comment on 'smooth and Discontinuous Signature Type Change in General Relativity', Gen. Rel. Grav. 28, 1401–1408 (1996).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dray, T., Ellis, G. & Hellaby, C. Note on Signature Change and Colombeau Theory. General Relativity and Gravitation 33, 1041–1046 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010228315205
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010228315205