Abstract. The authors derive an expression for the singular part of the stress-energy tensor on a hypersurface in spacetime in terms of the discontinuities in fundamental forms associated with the surface for both the non-null case, where the results are standard, and the null case. They then derive the minimum conditions which must be satisfied in order to glue two spacetimes together along such a hypersurface. In both cases, the essential requirement is only that the naturally induced (possibly degenerate) 3-metrics on the hypersurface must agree.

Print publication: Issue 2 (March 1987)