The structure of the b-completion of space-time

Abstract

Structured space, as a natural generalization of the manifold concept, is defined to be a topological space with a sheaf of real function algebras which are suitably localized and closed with respect to composition with smooth Euclidean functions. Vector fields, differential forms, linear connection and curvature are introduced on structured spaces. It is shown that structured spaces correctly model space-times with singularities. Schmidt's b-boundary of space-time is constructed in the category of structured spaces, and well known difficulties with the b-boundaries of the closed Friedman and Schwarzschild space-times are disentangled. It is argued that the b-boundary of space-time, when considered in the category of structured spaces, can serve as a good definition of classical singularities.