Eur. Phys. J. C (2015) 75: 35
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-015-3269-0

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Ambient cosmology and spacetime singularities

¹ Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Bern University, Sidlerstrasse 5, 3012, Bern, Switzerland
² Ecole Polytechnique, 91128, Palaiseau, France
³ Department of Physics, CERN, Theory Division, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
⁴ School of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences, National Technical University, 15780, Athens, Greece

^* e-mail: skot@aegean.gr

Received: 17 September 2014
Accepted: 11 January 2015
Published online: 28 January 2015

Abstract

We present a new approach to the issues of spacetime singularities and cosmic censorship in general relativity. This is based on the idea that standard 4-dimensional spacetime is the conformal infinity of an ambient metric for the 5-dimensional Einstein equations with fluid sources. We then find that the existence of spacetime singularities in four dimensions is constrained by asymptotic properties of the ambient 5-metric, while the non-degeneracy of the latter crucially depends on cosmic censorship holding on the boundary.