Thesis--Tübingen, 1970. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-101).

The central objective of this work is to present an analysis of the asymptotic conformal Killing vectors in asymptotically-flat space-times of general relativity. This problem has been examined by two different methods; in Chapter 5 the asymptotic expansion technique originated by Newman and Unti [31] leads to a solution for asymptotically-flat spacetimes which admit an asymptotically shear-free congruence of null geodesics, and in Chapter 6 the conformal rescaling technique of Penrose [54] is used both to support the findings of the previous chapter and to set out a procedure for solution in the general case. It is pointed out that Penrose's conformal technique is preferable to the use of asymptotic expansion methods, since it can be established in a rigorous manner without leading to the possible convergence difficulties associated with asymptotic expansions. Since the asymptotic conformal symmetry groups of asymptotically flat space-times Are generalisations of the conformal group of Minkowski space-time we devote Chapters 3 and 4 to a study of the flat space case so that the results of later chapters may receive an interpretation in terms of familiar concepts. These chapters fulfil a second, equally important, role in establishing local isomorphisms between the Minkowski-space conformal group, 90(2,4) and SU(2,2). The SO(2,4) representation has been used by Kastrup [61] to give a physical interpretation using space-time gauge transformations. This appears as part of the survey of interpretative work in Chapter 7. The SU(2,2) representation of the conformal group has assumed a theoretical prominence in recent years. through the work of Penrose [9-11] on twistors. In Chapter 4 we establish contact with twistor ideas by showing that points in Minkowski space-time correspond to certain complex skew-symmetric rank two tensors on the SU(2,2) carrier space. These objects are, in Penrose's terminology [91, simple skew-symmetric twistors of valence [J. A particularly interesting aspect of conformal objects in space-time is explored in Chapter 8, where we extend the work of Geroch [16] on multipole moments of the Laplace equation in 3-space to the consideration. of Q tý =0 in Minkowski space-time. This development hinges upon the fact that multipole moment fields are also conformal Killing tensors. In the final chapter some elementary applications of the results of Chapters 3 and 5 are made to cosmological models which have conformal flatness or asymptotic conformal flatness. In the first class here we have 'models of the Robertson-Walker type and in the second class we have the asymptotically-Friedmann universes considered by Hawking [73].

The central objective of this work is to present an analysis of the asymptotic conformal Killing vectors in asymptotically-flat space-times of general relativity. This problem has been examined by two different methods; in Chapter 5 the asymptotic expansion technique originated by Newman and Unti [31] leads to a solution for asymptotically-flat spacetimes which admit an asymptotically shear-free congruence of null geodesics, and in Chapter 6 the conformal rescaling technique of Penrose [54] is used both to support the findings of the previous chapter and to set out a procedure for solution in the general case. It is pointed out that Penrose's conformal technique is preferable to the use of asymptotic expansion methods, since it can be established in a rigorous manner without leading to the possible convergence difficulties associated with asymptotic expansions. Since the asymptotic conformal symmetry groups of asymptotically flat space-times Are generalisations of the conformal group of Minkowski space-time we devote Chapters 3 and 4 to a study of the flat space case so that the results of later chapters may receive an interpretation in terms of familiar concepts. These chapters fulfil a second, equally important, role in establishing local isomorphisms between the Minkowski-space conformal group, 90(2,4) and SU(2,2). The SO(2,4) representation has been used by Kastrup [61] to give a physical interpretation using space-time gauge transformations. This appears as part of the survey of interpretative work in Chapter 7. The SU(2,2) representation of the conformal group has assumed a theoretical prominence in recent years. through the work of Penrose [9-11] on twistors. In Chapter 4 we establish contact with twistor ideas by showing that points in Minkowski space-time correspond to certain complex skew-symmetric rank two tensors on the SU(2,2) carrier space. These objects are, in Penrose's terminology [91, simple skew-symmetric twistors of valence [J. A particularly interesting aspect of conformal objects in space-time is explored in Chapter 8, where we extend the work of Geroch [16] on multipole moments of the Laplace equation in 3-space to the consideration. of Q tý =0 in Minkowski space-time. This development hinges upon the fact that multipole moment fields are also conformal Killing tensors. In the final chapter some elementary applications of the results of Chapters 3 and 5 are made to cosmological models which have conformal flatness or asymptotic conformal flatness. In the first class here we have 'models of the Robertson-Walker type and in the second class we have the asymptotically-Friedmann universes considered by Hawking [73]. / University of Bradford Research Studenship

Nous étudions certains processus de Lévy à valeurs dans les groupes d'isométries respectifs des espace-temps de Minkowski, de De Sitter et de Anti-De-Sitter. Le groupe d'isométries est vu comme le fibré des repères de l'espace-temps et les processus de Lévy considérés se projettent sur le fibré unitaire en un processus markovien relativiste ; c'est-à-dire que les trajectoires dans l'espace-temps sont de genre temps et que le générateur est invariant par les isométries. Dans la première partie nous adaptons pour les diffusions hypoelliptiques générales un résultat de Ben Arous et Gradinaru concernant la singularité de la fonction de Green hypoelliptique. Nous déduisons de cela un critère d'effilement de Wiener local pour les diffusions relativistes dans le groupe de Poincaré, groupe des isométries de l'espace-temps de Minkowski. Dans les deux dernières parties nous nous intéressons au comportement asymptotique du flot stochastique associé à ces processus de Lévy dans les différents groupes d'isométries. Sous une condition d'intégrabilité de la mesure de Lévy nous calculons explicitement les coefficients de Lyapounov des processus dans le groupe de Poincaré. Nous effectuons un travail similaire pour les espace-temps de De Sitter et Anti-De-Sitter en nous limitant au cas des diffusions. Nous explicitons de plus la frontière de Poisson pour la diffusion dans le groupe d'isométries de l'espace-temps de De Sitter. / We study some Lévy processes with values in the isometry group of Minkowski, De Sitter and Anti-de-Sitter space-times. The isometry group is seen as the frame bundle of the space-time and the Lévy processes we consider are some lift of relativistic markovian processes with values in the unitary tangent bundle of the space-time. Theses processes are relativistic in the sense that theirs trajectories are time-like and their generators are invariant by the isometries of the space-time. In the first part of this work we adapt to the case of a general hypoelliptic diffusion a result of Ben Arous and Gradinaru concerning the singularity of the hypoelliptic Green function. We deduce of this a local Wiener criterion for the relativistic diffusion in the isometry group of Minkowski space-time. In the two last parts we are interested to the asymptotic behavior of the stochastic flow associated to these Lévy processes in the different considered space-times. Under a integrability condition on the Lévy measure we compute explicitly the Lyapunov coefficient for such flows in the isometry group of Minkowski space-time. Then, we do a similar work in the context of de Sitter and Anti-de-Sitter space-times limiting ourselves to the case of diffusions. In fine, we explicit the Poisson boundary of the diffusion in the isometry group of de Sitter space-time.