THE PARAMETERS OF THE LEWIS METRIC FOR THE WEYL CLASS

Abstract

We provide physical interpretation for the four parameters of the stationary Lewis metric restricted to the Weyl class. Matching this spacetime to a completely anisotropic, rigidly rotating, fluid cylinder, we obtain from the junction conditions that one of these parameters is proportional to the vorticity of the source. From the Newtonian approximation a second parameter is found to be proportional to the energy per unit of length. The remaining two parameters may be associated to a gravitational analog of the Aharanov-Bohm effect. We prove, using the Cartan scalars, that the Weyl class metric and static Levi-Civita metric are locally equivalent, i.e., indistinguishable in terms of its curvature.