We demonstrate the breakdown of several fundamentals of Lorentzian causality theory in low regularity. Most notably, chronological futures (defined naturally using locally Lipschitz curves) may be non-open and may differ from the corresponding sets defined via piecewise -curves. By refining the notion of a causal bubble from Chruściel and Grant (Class Quantum Gravity 29(14):145001, 2012), we characterize spacetimes for which such phenomena can occur, and also relate these to the possibility of deforming causal curves of positive length into timelike curves (push-up). The phenomena described here are, in particular, relevant for recent synthetic approaches to low-regularity Lorentzian geometry where, in the absence of a differentiable structure, causality has to be based on locally Lipschitz curves.
Keywords: Causal bubbles; Causality theory; Chronological future; Low regularity.
© The Author(s) 2019.