In relativity and in pseudo-Riemannian geometry, a null hypersurface is a

hypersurface In geometry, a hypersurface is a generalization of the concepts of hyperplane, plane curve, and surface. A hypersurface is a manifold or an algebraic variety of dimension , which is embedded in an ambient space of dimension , generally a Eucl ...

whose

normal vector In geometry, a normal is an object such as a line, ray, or vector that is perpendicular to a given object. For example, the normal line to a plane curve at a given point is the (infinite) line perpendicular to the tangent line to the curve ...

at every point is a

null vector In mathematics, given a vector space ''X'' with an associated quadratic form ''q'', written , a null vector or isotropic vector is a non-zero element ''x'' of ''X'' for which . In the theory of real bilinear forms, definite quadratic forms a ...

(has zero length with respect to the local

metric tensor In the mathematical field of differential geometry, a metric tensor (or simply metric) is an additional structure on a manifold (such as a surface) that allows defining distances and angles, just as the inner product on a Euclidean space allo ...

). A

light cone In special and general relativity, a light cone (or "null cone") is the path that a flash of light, emanating from a single event (localized to a single point in space and a single moment in time) and traveling in all directions, would take thro ...

is an example. An alternative characterization is that the

tangent space In mathematics, the tangent space of a manifold generalizes to higher dimensions the notion of '' tangent planes'' to surfaces in three dimensions and ''tangent lines'' to curves in two dimensions. In the context of physics the tangent space to a ...

at every point of a

contains a nonzero vector such that the metric applied to such a vector and any vector in the tangent space is zero. Another way of saying this is that the

pullback In mathematics, a pullback is either of two different, but related processes: precomposition and fiber-product. Its dual is a pushforward. Precomposition Precomposition with a function probably provides the most elementary notion of pullback: ...

of the metric onto the tangent space is degenerate. For a Lorentzian metric, all the vectors in such a tangent space are space-like except in one direction, in which they are null. Physically, there is exactly one lightlike

worldline The world line (or worldline) of an object is the path that an object traces in 4-dimensional spacetime. It is an important concept in modern physics, and particularly theoretical physics. The concept of a "world line" is distinguished from con ...

contained in a null hypersurface through each point that corresponds to the worldline of a particle moving at the speed of light, and no contained worldlines that are time-like. Examples of null hypersurfaces include a

, a Killing horizon, and the

event horizon In astrophysics, an event horizon is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect an observer. Wolfgang Rindler coined the term in the 1950s. In 1784, John Michell proposed that gravity can be strong enough in the vicinity of massive compact ob ...

of a

black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can defo ...

References

*. *James B. Hartle, ''Gravity: an Introduction To Einstein's General Relativity''. General relativity Lorentzian manifolds {{relativity-stub