Coupled dilaton and electromagnetic field in cylindrically symmetric spacetime

Abstract

An exact solution is obtained for coupled dilaton and electromagnetic field in a cylindrically symmetric spacetime where an axial magnetic field as well as a radial electric field both are present. Depending on the choice of the arbitrary constants our solution reduces either to dilatonic gravity with pure electric field or to that with pure magnetic field. In the first case we have a curvature singularity at a finite distance from the axis indicating the existence of the boundary of a charged cylinder which may represent the source of the electric field. For the second case we have a singularity on the axis. When the dilaton field is absent the electromagnetic field disappears in both the cases. Whereas the contrary is not true. It is further shown that light rays except for those proceeding in the radial direction are either trapped or escape to infinity depending on the magnitudes of certain constant parameters as well as on the nature of the electromagnetic field. Nature of circular geodesics is also studied in the presence of dilaton field in the cylindrically symmetric spacetime.