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Spherically Symmetric Spacetime
In physics, spherically symmetric spacetimes are commonly used to obtain analytic and numerical solutions to Einstein's field equations in the presence of radially moving matter or energy. Because spherically symmetric spacetimes are by definition irrotational, they are not realistic models of black holes in nature. However, their metrics are considerably simpler than those of rotating spacetimes, making them much easier to analyze. Spherically symmetric models are not entirely inappropriate: many of them have Penrose diagrams similar to those of rotating spacetimes, and these typically have qualitative features (such as Cauchy horizons) that are unaffected by rotation. One such application is the study of mass inflation due to counter-moving streams of infalling matter in the interior of a black hole. Formal definition A spherically symmetric spacetime is a spacetime whose isometry group contains a subgroup which is isomorphic to the rotation group SO(3) and the orbits of this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Killing Vector Fields
In mathematics, a Killing vector field (often called a Killing field), named after Wilhelm Killing, is a vector field on a Riemannian manifold (or pseudo-Riemannian manifold) that preserves the metric. Killing fields are the infinitesimal generators of isometries; that is, flows generated by Killing fields are continuous isometries of the manifold. More simply, the flow generates a symmetry, in the sense that moving each point of an object the same distance in the direction of the Killing vector will not distort distances on the object. Definition Specifically, a vector field ''X'' is a Killing field if the Lie derivative with respect to ''X'' of the metric ''g'' vanishes: :\mathcal_ g = 0 \,. In terms of the Levi-Civita connection, this is :g\left(\nabla_Y X, Z\right) + g\left(Y, \nabla_Z X\right) = 0 \, for all vectors ''Y'' and ''Z''. In local coordinates, this amounts to the Killing equation :\nabla_\mu X_\nu + \nabla_ X_\mu = 0 \,. This condition is expressed in c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light Cones
In special and general relativity, a light cone (or "null cone") is the path that a flash of light, emanating from a single event (localized to a single point in space and a single moment in time) and traveling in all directions, would take through spacetime. Details If one imagines the light confined to a two-dimensional plane, the light from the flash spreads out in a circle after the event E occurs, and if we graph the growing circle with the vertical axis of the graph representing time, the result is a cone, known as the future light cone. The past light cone behaves like the future light cone in reverse, a circle which contracts in radius at the speed of light until it converges to a point at the exact position and time of the event E. In reality, there are three space dimensions, so the light would actually form an expanding or contracting sphere in three-dimensional (3D) space rather than a circle in 2D, and the light cone would actually be a four-dimensional version of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isotropic Coordinates
In the theory of Lorentzian manifolds, spherically symmetric spacetimes admit a family of ''nested round spheres''. There are several different types of coordinate chart which are ''adapted'' to this family of nested spheres; the best known is the Schwarzschild chart, but the isotropic chart is also often useful. The defining characteristic of an isotropic chart is that its radial coordinate (which is different from the radial coordinate of a Schwarzschild chart) is defined so that light cones appear ''round''. This means that (except in the trivial case of a locally flat manifold), the angular isotropic coordinates do not faithfully represent distances within the nested spheres, nor does the radial coordinate faithfully represent radial distances. On the other hand, angles in the constant time hyperslices are represented without distortion, hence the name of the chart. Isotropic charts are most often applied to static spherically symmetric spacetimes in metric theories of gravi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schwarzschild Coordinates
In the theory of Lorentzian manifolds, spherically symmetric spacetimes admit a family of ''nested round spheres''. In such a spacetime, a particularly important kind of coordinate chart is the Schwarzschild chart, a kind of polar spherical coordinate chart on a static and spherically symmetric spacetime, which is ''adapted'' to these nested round spheres. The defining characteristic of Schwarzschild chart is that the radial coordinate possesses a natural geometric interpretation in terms of the surface area and Gaussian curvature of each sphere. However, radial distances and angles are not accurately represented. These charts have many applications in metric theories of gravitation such as general relativity. They are most often used in static spherically symmetric spacetimes. In the case of general relativity, Birkhoff's theorem states that every ''isolated'' spherically symmetric vacuum or electrovacuum solution of the Einstein field equation is static, but this is certainl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coordinate Chart
In topology, a branch of mathematics, a topological manifold is a topological space that locally resembles real ''n''-dimensional Euclidean space. Topological manifolds are an important class of topological spaces, with applications throughout mathematics. All manifolds are topological manifolds by definition. Other types of manifolds are formed by adding structure to a topological manifold (e.g. differentiable manifolds are topological manifolds equipped with a differential structure). Every manifold has an "underlying" topological manifold, obtained by simply "forgetting" the added structure. However, not every topological manifold can be endowed with a particular additional structure. For example, the E8 manifold is a topological manifold which cannot be endowed with a differentiable structure. Formal definition A topological space ''X'' is called locally Euclidean if there is a non-negative integer ''n'' such that every point in ''X'' has a neighborhood which is homeomorphic t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Line Element
In geometry, the line element or length element can be informally thought of as a line segment associated with an infinitesimal displacement vector in a metric space. The length of the line element, which may be thought of as a differential arc length, is a function of the metric tensor and is denoted by ''ds''. Line elements are used in physics, especially in theories of gravitation (most notably general relativity) where spacetime is modelled as a curved Pseudo-Riemannian manifold with an appropriate metric tensor. General formulation Definition of the line element and arclength The coordinate-independent definition of the square of the line element ''ds'' in an ''n''-dimensional Riemannian or Pseudo Riemannian manifold (in physics usually a Lorentzian manifold) is the "square of the length" of an infinitesimal displacement d\mathbf (in pseudo Riemannian manifolds possibly negative) whose square root should be used for computing curve length: ds^2 = d\mathbf\cdot d\ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spherical Coordinates
In mathematics, a spherical coordinate system is a coordinate system for three-dimensional space where the position of a point is specified by three numbers: the ''radial distance'' of that point from a fixed origin, its ''polar angle'' measured from a fixed zenith direction, and the ''azimuthal angle'' of its orthogonal projection on a reference plane that passes through the origin and is orthogonal to the zenith, measured from a fixed reference direction on that plane. It can be seen as the three-dimensional version of the polar coordinate system. The radial distance is also called the ''radius'' or ''radial coordinate''. The polar angle may be called '' colatitude'', ''zenith angle'', '' normal angle'', or ''inclination angle''. When radius is fixed, the two angular coordinates make a coordinate system on the sphere sometimes called spherical polar coordinates. The use of symbols and the order of the coordinates differs among sources and disciplines. This article will us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asymptotically Flat
An asymptotically flat spacetime is a Lorentzian manifold in which, roughly speaking, the curvature vanishes at large distances from some region, so that at large distances, the geometry becomes indistinguishable from that of Minkowski spacetime. While this notion makes sense for any Lorentzian manifold, it is most often applied to a spacetime standing as a solution to the field equations of some metric theory of gravitation, particularly general relativity. In this case, we can say that an asymptotically flat spacetime is one in which the gravitational field, as well as any matter or other fields which may be present, become negligible in magnitude at large distances from some region. In particular, in an asymptotically flat vacuum solution, the gravitational field (curvature) becomes negligible at large distances from the source of the field (typically some isolated massive object such as a star). Intuitive significance The condition of asymptotic flatness is analogous to simi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vacuum Field Equations
In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. The equations were published by Einstein in 1915 in the form of a tensor equation which related the local ' (expressed by the Einstein tensor) with the local energy, momentum and stress within that spacetime (expressed by the stress–energy tensor). Analogously to the way that electromagnetic fields are related to the distribution of charges and currents via Maxwell's equations, the EFE relate the spacetime geometry to the distribution of mass–energy, momentum and stress, that is, they determine the metric tensor of spacetime for a given arrangement of stress–energy–momentum in the spacetime. The relationship between the metric tensor and the Einstein tensor allows the EFE to be written as a set of nonlinear partial differential equations when used in this way. The solutions of the EFE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birkhoff's Theorem (relativity)
In general relativity, Birkhoff's theorem states that any spherically symmetric solution of the vacuum field equations must be static and asymptotically flat. This means that the exterior solution (i.e. the spacetime outside of a spherical, nonrotating, gravitating body) must be given by the Schwarzschild metric. The converse of the theorem is true and is called Israel's theorem. The converse is not true in Newtonian gravity. The theorem was proven in 1923 by George David Birkhoff (author of another famous '' Birkhoff theorem'', the ''pointwise ergodic theorem'' which lies at the foundation of ergodic theory). However, Nils Voje Johansen, Finn Ravndal, Stanley Deser recently pointed out that it was published two years earlier by a little-known Norwegian physicist, Jørg Tofte Jebsen.J.T. Jebsen, ''Uber die allgemeinen kugelsymmetrischen Lösungen der Einsteinschen Gravitationsgleichungen im Vakuum'', Arkiv för matematik, astronomi och fysik, 15 (18), 1 - 9 (1921).J.T. Jebsen, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Static Spacetime
In general relativity, a spacetime is said to be static if it does not change over time and is also irrotational. It is a special case of a stationary spacetime, which is the geometry of a stationary spacetime that does not change in time but can rotate. Thus, the Kerr solution provides an example of a stationary spacetime that is not static; the non-rotating Schwarzschild solution is an example that is static. Formally, a spacetime is static if it admits a global, non-vanishing, timelike Killing vector field K which is irrotational, ''i.e.'', whose orthogonal distribution is involutive. (Note that the leaves of the associated foliation are necessarily space-like hypersurfaces.) Thus, a static spacetime is a stationary spacetime satisfying this additional integrability condition. These spacetimes form one of the simplest classes of Lorentzian manifolds. Locally, every static spacetime looks like a standard static spacetime which is a Lorentzian warped product ''R'' \times ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
