Petrov Classification - Examples

Examples

In some (more or less) familiar solutions, the Weyl tensor has the same Petrov type at each event:

  • the Kerr vacuum is everywhere type D,
  • certain Robinson/Trautman vacuums are everywhere type III,
  • the pp-wave spacetimes are everywhere type N,
  • the FRW models are everywhere type O.

More generally, any spherically symmetric spacetime must be of type D (or O). All algebraically special spacetimes having various types of stress-energy tensor are known, for example, all the type D vacuum solutions.

Some classes of solutions can be invariantly characterized using algebraic symmetries of the Weyl tensor: for example, the class of non-conformally flat null electrovacuum or null dust solutions admitting an expanding but nontwisting null congruence is precisely the class of Robinson/Trautmann spacetimes. These are usually type II, but include type III and type N examples.

Read more about this topic:  Petrov Classification

Famous quotes containing the word examples:

    It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people’s attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.
    —G.C. (Georg Christoph)

    No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.
    André Breton (1896–1966)

    There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and even in war, but this is no reason we should bring ‘em all up to Latin and Greek or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and housewifry.
    Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)