Past extendibility and initial singularity in Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker and Bianchi I spacetimes

Abstract

We study past-directed extendibility of Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) and Bianchi type I spacetimes with a scale factor vanishing in the past. We give criteria for determining whether a boundary for past-directed incomplete geodesics is a parallelly propagated curvature singularity, which cannot necessarily be read off from scalar curvature invariants. It is clarified that, for incomplete FLRW spacetime to avoid the singularity, the spacetime necessarily reduces to the Milne universe or flat de Sitter universe toward the boundary. For incomplete Bianchi type I spacetime to be free of singularity, it is necessary that the spacetime asymptotically fits into the product of the extendible isotropic geometry (Milne or flat de Sitter) and flat space, or, anisotropic spacetime with specific power law scale factors. Furthermore, we investigate in detail the time-dependence of the scale factor compatible with the extendibility in both spacetimes beyond the leading order.