Compact Null Hypersurfaces and Collapsing Riemannian Manifolds

Restrictions are obtained on the topology of a compact divergence ‐ free null hypersurface in a four‐dimensional Lorentzian manifold whose Ricci tensor is zero or satisfies some weaker conditions. This is done by showing that each null hypersurface of this type can be used to construct a family of three ‐ dimensional Riemannian metrics which collapses with bounded curvature and applying known results on the topology of manifolds which collapse. The result is then applied to general relativity, where it implies a restriction on the topology of smooth compact Cauchy horizons in spacetimes with various types of reasonable matter content.