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PAllen said:I'm confused. Consider the Newtonian approximation. To a first approximation, the innermost shell has no weight to support. Each shell further out has more weight to support, as there is more mass inside of it (that outside has no effect). How can this not produce a radial stress component?
It produces either a radial stress component, or a tangential one (with no radial stress component), or possibly some combination of the two.
I'm not sure how to explain it any clearer than using the math. Note that the physics concept of pressure is perhaps subtly different from the engineering concept.
Consider peter's metric:
<br /> g_{\mu\nu} = \left[ \begin {array}{cccc} -J \left( r \right) &0&0&0<br /> \\0&{\frac {r}{r-2\,m \left( r \right) }}&0&0<br /> \\0&0&{r}^{2}&0\\0&0&0&{r}^{2}<br /> \left( \sin \left( \theta \right) \right) ^{2}\end {array} \right] <br />
Define T_{\hat{a}\hat{b}} in an orthonormal basis:
<br /> <br /> T_{\hat{a}\hat{b}} = \left[ \begin {array}{cccc} \rho \left( r \right) &0&0&0\\0&P \left( r \right) &0&0\\0&0&S<br /> \left( r \right) &0\\0&0&0&S \left( r \right) <br /> \end {array} \right] <br />
Convert it to a coordinate basis
<br /> T_{ab} = \left[ \begin {array}{cccc} J \left( r \right) \rho \left( r \right) &0&0&0\\0&{\frac {rP \left( r \right) }{r-2\,m<br /> \left( r \right) }}&0&0\\0&0&{r}^{2}S \left( r<br /> \right) &0\\0&0&0&{r}^{2} \left( \sin \left( \theta<br /> \right) \right) ^{2}S \left( r \right) \end {array} \right] <br />
Take the covariant derivative \nabla^a T_{ab}
There is only one term, in the r direction. In Newtonian terms, this represents the force balance equation.
<br /> \frac{\left(dJ/dr\right)}{2J} \, \left(\rho+P\right) + dP/dr + \frac{2}{r} \left( P - S \right) = 0<br />
If S=0, then we have the usual differential equation for P(r). But S is a free choice, there are no constraints it has to follow. In particular, there's nothing to prevent us from choosing S such that P(r) = 0. This particular choice represents a stable solution which has only tangential pressure and no radial pressure - in the physics sense of the term , i.e. in the sense used by the stress-energy tensor.
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