A modern view of the classical Herglotz-Noether theorem

Abstract

In this paper we give a new proof, valid for all dimensions, of the classical Herglotz-Noether theorem that all rotational shear-free and expansion-free flows (rotational Born-rigid flows) in Minkowski spacetime are generated by Killing vector fields (isometric flows). This is aimed as an illustration of a general framework for working with problems that can be described as a structure-preserving submersion, which we will describe in a subsequent paper.