Painlevé–Gullstrand synchronizations in spherical symmetry

Abstract

A Painlevé–Gullstrand synchronization is a slicing of the spacetime by a family of flat space-like 3-surfaces. For spherically symmetric spacetimes, we show that a Painlevé–Gullstrand synchronization only exists in the region where (dr)2 ⩽ 1, r being the curvature radius of the isometry group orbits (2-spheres). This condition states that the Misner–Sharp gravitational energy of these 2-spheres is not negative and has an intrinsic meaning in terms of the norm of the mean extrinsic curvature vector. It also provides an algebraic inequality involving the Weyl curvature scalar and the Ricci eigenvalues. We prove that the energy and momentum densities associated with the Weinberg complex of a Painlevé–Gullstrand slice vanish in these curvature coordinates, and we give a new interpretation of these slices by using semi-metric Newtonian connections. It is also outlined that, by solving the vacuum Einstein's equations in a coordinate system adapted to a Painlevé–Gullstrand synchronization, the Schwarzschild solution is directly obtained in a whole coordinate domain that includes the horizon and both its interior and exterior regions.