Some D type metric forms for spacetimes with shear, nongeodesic, and nondiverging principal null congruences

Abstract

In the context of a null tetrad formalism it is assumed that the two real vectors of the tetrad have neither expansion nor rotation and that they are nongeodesic and/or have shear. This assumption is rarely used in search of algebraically special spacetimes. General relations for the connection and for the Ricci and Weyl tensors are presented. An additional assumption that these vectors are principal leads to Petrov type D spacetimes, reducible in some cases to conformally flat ones. Twenty-two explicit metric forms, probably hitherto unknown, are found.