On the local and global properties of geodesics in pseudo-Riemannian metrics

Abstract

The paper is a study of geodesic in two-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian metrics. Firstly, the local properties of geodesics in a neighborhood of generic parabolic points are investigated. The equation of the geodesic flow has singularities at such points that leads to a curious phenomenon: geodesics cannot pass through such a point in arbitrary tangential directions, but only in certain directions said to be admissible (the number of admissible directions is generically 1 or 3). Secondly, we study the global properties of geodesics in pseudo-Riemannian metrics possessing differentiable groups of symmetries. At the end of the paper, two special types of discontinuous metrics are considered.