Ricci collineations for non-degenerate, diagonal and spherically symmetric Ricci tensors (Q1585786)

As well known, the symmetries of geometrically and physically relevant quantities of general relativity are collineations and, in general, can be represented as \({\mathcal L}_{\xi}\phi =F\), where \(\phi\) and \(F\) are two geometric objects, \(\xi\) is the vector field generating the symmetry and \({\mathcal L}_{\xi}\) the Lie derivative along the congruence generated by \(\xi\). Ricci collineations for static spherically symmetric space-times have been studied by various authors. This paper deals with the Ricci collineation (RC) vector for dynamic (i.e., non-static) spherically symmetric space-times. The authors of this paper give the expression of the vector field generator of a RC for diagonal, spherically symmetric and non-degenerate Ricci tensors. The resulting expressions show that the time and radial first derivatives of the components of the Ricci tensor can be used to classify the collineation, leading to 64 families. Some examples in the paper illustrate how to obtain the RC vector field.