Null twist vanishes exactly for hypersurface-orthogonal geodesics

ID: null-twist-vanishes-exactly-for-hypersurface-orthogonal-geodesics

For an affine null geodesic congruence, annihilates in both slots. Relative to a null partner, its antisymmetric part is its screen projection plus a term of the form . Hence zero null twist implies , and Frobenius theorem makes locally proportional to a hypersurface gradient. Conversely, if , its antisymmetric derivative has a factor of , so the screen projection vanishes. Geodesicity is essential to the converse from vanishing screen twist to the full Frobenius condition.

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