Modeling general relativistic perfect fluids in field-theoretic language (Q1805635)

Skew-symmetric massless fields are used for modeling perfect fluid in the paper. These fields are close analogues of Maxwell's fields and their potentials are \(r\)-forms. It is shown that only in the cases \(r=2\) and \(r=3\) the stress-energy tensor of the considered fields has the form of that ofa perfect fluid. Such fields can be used for describing both nonrotating and rotating relativistic perfect fluids. Meanwhile, a free \(r=3\) field is completely equivalent to the appearance of the cosmological term in Einstein's equations.