Sunday 17 February 2019

The Matter-Vacuum Boundary in General Relativity


A previous Stack question (before I joined) asking about continuity in GR received replies which suggested that Curvature would be discontinuous at say a planetary boundary (assume no atmosphere for simplicity). I will analyse some basics of this and then return to that question.


It is true that the Stress-Energy Tensor $T{_a}{_b}=0$ outside the body and is nonzero in the interior resulting in a discontinuity at the surface. This would imply that the Ricci Tensor $R{_a}{_b}$ is also discontinous at the boundary, and zero in the vacuum part as expected from the Einstein equations. However the Riemann Curvature Tensor $R{_a}{_b}{_c}{_d}$ (which generates the physically measurable accelerations) has contributions from the Weyl Curvature Tensor $C{_a}{_b}{_c}{_d}$ as well. In fact the Ricci Tensor "hands over" to the Weyl Tensor at the boundary: thus the Riemann Tensor stays non-zero there. However this "hand over" does not imply continuity, unless there is some GR Theorem which says that the Riemann Tensor stays continuous in this region.


Also in the Newtonian approximation the analogous role is played by the gravitational potential $\phi$ in the Poisson equation $\nabla^2 \phi = 4 \pi G\rho$. Clearly this shows a discontinuity too as the density $\rho$ suddenly drops off at the boundary. However the discontinuity is in the second derivative of the potential: the potential itself is continuous. This means that in exiting a planetary cave or mine one does not suddenly meet a change in Gravitational potential.


However I do not know any theorem in GR which guarantees such continuity. The applicable in-the-large scenario might be the surface of a neutron star; there may be in-the-small particle models too.




Answer



Roy, your wishful thinking is manifestly impossible. If the tensor $T_{\mu\nu}$ is discontinuous, and it surely is on the surface of a solid, then Einstein's equations guarantee that the Einstein tensor $G_{ab}$ is discontinuous as well - up to a normalization, it's the same tensor. It follows that the Ricci tensor and Riemann tensor, $R_{\mu\nu}$ and $R_{\kappa\lambda\mu\nu}$, must also be discontinuous because the Einstein tensor $G_{\mu\nu}$ can be easily calculated both from the Ricci tensor as well as from the Riemann tensor, so if the Ricci or Riemann tensor were continuous, the Einstein tensor would have to be continuous, which is an obvious contradiction.


I just proved the opposite theorem that the Riemann tensor is discontinuous.


You should realize that the Riemann tensor has a higher number of components than the Ricci (or Einstein) tensor, so its continuity - which means the continuity of all of its components - is an even stronger condition than the continuity of the Ricci (or Einstein) tensor. The argument above proves that none of these tensors is continuous in the presence of solids - which is why there can't be any theorem saying the opposite thing (it would be wrong). Another question is whether the Weyl tensor is continuous near such boundaries. I don't know the answer. The answer could be easily calculated from the very formula for the Weyl tensor.


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