Dynamics in stationary, non-globally hyperbolic spacetimes

Classically, the dynamics of a scalar field in a non-globally hyperbolic spacetime is ill-posed. Previously, a prescription was given for defining dynamics in static spacetimes in terms of a second-order operator acting on a Hilbert space defined on static slices. The present work extends this result by giving a similar prescription for defining dynamics in stationary spacetimes obeying certain mild assumptions. The prescription is defined in terms of a first-order operator acting on a different Hilbert space from that used in the static prescription. It preserves the important properties of the earlier prescription: the formal solution agrees with the Cauchy evolution within the domain of dependence, and smooth data of compact support always give rise to smooth solutions. In the static case, the first-order formalism agrees with the second-order formalism (using specifically the Friedrichs extension). Applications to field quantization are also discussed.