1. Mathematical definition

2. Physical interpretation

3. Einstein tensor

4. Examples

5. See also

6. References

In mathematical physics, a null dust solution (sometimes called a null fluid) is a Lorentzian manifold in which the Einstein tensor is null. Such a spacetime can be interpreted as an exact solution of Einstein's field equation, in which the only mass-energy present in the spacetime is due to some kind of massless radiation.

Mathematical definition

By definition, the Einstein tensor of a null dust solution has the form

where is a null vector field. This definition makes sense purely geometrically, but if we place a stress–energy tensor on our spacetime of the form

,

then Einstein's field equation is satisfied, and such a stress–energy tensor has a clear physical interpretation in terms of massless radiation. The vector field specifies the direction in which the radiation is moving; the scalar multiplier specifies its intensity.

Physical interpretation

Physically speaking, a null dust describes either gravitational radiation, or some kind of nongravitational radiation which is described by a relativistic classical field theory (such as electromagnetic radiation), or a combination of these two. Null dusts include vacuum solutions as a special case.

Phenomena which can be modeled by null dust solutions include:

• a beam of neutrinos assumed for simplicity to be massless (treated according to classical physics),
• a very high-frequency electromagnetic wave,
• a beam of incoherent electromagnetic radiation.

In particular, a plane wave of incoherent electromagnetic radiation is a linear superposition of plane waves, all moving in the same direction but having randomly chosen phases and frequencies. (Even though the Einstein field equation is nonlinear, a linear superposition of comoving plane waves is possible.)

Here, each electromagnetic plane wave has a well defined frequency and phase, but the superposition does not. Individual electromagnetic plane waves are modeled by null electrovacuum solutions, while an incoherent mixture can be modeled by a null dust.

Einstein tensor

The components of a tensor computed with respect to a frame field rather than the coordinate basis are often called physical components, because these are the components which can (in principle) be measured by an observer.

In the case of a null dust solution, an adapted frame

(a timelike unit vector field and three spacelike unit vector fields, respectively) can always be found in which the Einstein tensor has a particularly simple appearance:

Here, is everywhere tangent to the world lines of our adapted observers, and these observers measure the energy density of the incoherent radiation to be .

From the form of the general coordinate basis expression given above, it is apparent that the stress–energy tensor has precisely the same isotropy group as the null vector field . It is generated by two parabolic Lorentz transformations (pointing in the direction) and one rotation (about the axis), and it is isometric to the three-dimensional Lie group , the isometry group of the euclidean plane.

Examples

Null dust solutions include two large and important families of exact solutions:

• pp-wave spacetimes (which model generalizations of the plane waves familiar from electromagnetism),
• Robinson–Trautman null dusts (which model radiation expanding from a radiating object).

The pp-waves include the gravitational plane waves and the monochromatic electromagnetic plane wave. A specific example of considerable interest is

• the Bonnor beam, an exact solution modeling an infinitely long beam of light surrounded by a vacuum region.

Robinson–Trautman null dusts include the Kinnersley–Walker photon rocket solutions, which include the Vaidya null dust, which includes the Schwarzschild vacuum.

See also

• Vaidya metric
• Lorentz group

References

• {{cite book |author1=Stephani, Hans |author2=Kramer, Dietrich |author3=Maccallum, Malcolm |author4=Hoenselaers, Cornelius |author5=Herlt, Eduard |last-author-amp=yes | title=Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations| location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2003 | isbn=0-521-46136-7}}. This standard monograph gives many examples of null dust solutions.

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