light cone

plural light cones · alternative lightcone

1. relativityIn special relativity, the pattern describing the temporal evolution of a flash of light in Minkowski spacetime. This is modeled in 3-space using the two horizontal axes as spatial dimensions, while the vertical axis is time.

   This gives the future light cone of the event. Similarly, you can define the past light cone—as the history of a spherical shell of light converging in on the event. All these spatial spheres, past and future, represent cross-sections through the space–time light cone, […]

   1998, Hermann Bondi, Miranda Weston-Smith, editors, The Universe Unfolding, Clarendon Press, page 384

2. broadlyfigurativelyA (realized or imagined) data visualization of possible sets of future outcomes that is analogous to such a cone.
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see light, cone.