Rigidly rotating strings in stationary axisymmetric spacetimes

Abstract

In this paper we study the motion of a rigidly rotating Nambu - Goto test string in a stationary axisymmetric background spacetime. As special examples we consider rigid rotation of strings in a flat spacetime, where explicit analytic solutions can be obtained, and in the Kerr spacetime where we find an interesting new family of test string solutions. We present a detailed classification of these solutions in the Kerr background.