Shear and vorticity of perfect-fluid spacetimes and the shear-free conjecture

Abstract

We obtain expressions for the shear and the vorticity tensors of perfect-fluid spacetimes, in terms of the divergence of the Weyl tensor. For such spacetimes, we prove that if the gradient of the energy density is parallel to the velocity, then either the expansion rate is zero, or the vorticity vanishes. This statement recalls the "shear-free conjecture" for a perfect barotropic fluid: vanishing shear implies either vanishing expansion rate or vanishing vorticity. Finally, we give a new condition for a perfect fluid to be a Generalized Robinson-Walker spacetime.