Null pregeodesic 2026-10-06
A null pregeodesic has a null tangent and can be parametrized as a null geodesic. In a two-dimensional Lorentzian metric, the acceleration of a regular null curve is orthogonal to its tangent and therefore proportional to it.
Locally write a smooth hypersurface as with . It is a null hypersurface when on it. Then is both normal and tangent, and the induced metric is degenerate along .
Because covariant derivatives commute on a scalar,
The scalar vanishes on the hypersurface, so its derivative annihilates every tangent direction there. Its derivative is consequently proportional to : locally for a smooth function , giving
Thus the normal generates null pregeodesics. Rescale , choosing , to get . These are the affinely parametrized generators of the null hypersurface. The proportionality need not vanish: setting only on the hypersurface does not set its full transverse derivative to zero.