An Analytic cylindrically symmetric solution for collapsing dust

Sep, 2004
8 pages
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Abstract: (arXiv)
Dust configurations are the simplest models for astrophysical objects. Here we examine the gravitational collapse of an infinite cylinder of dust and give an analytic interior solution. Surprisingly, starting with a cylindrically symmetric ansatz one arrives at a 3-space with constant curvature, i.e. the resulting metric describes a piece of the Friedman interior of the Oppenheimer-Snyder collapse. Indeed, by introducing double polar coordinates, a 3-space of constant curvature can be interpreted as a cylindrically symmetric space as well. This result shows afresh that topology is not fixed by the Einstein equations.