Evolution of radiating charged spheres in general relativity

Abstract

A method reported by Herrera et al. is extended to study radiating, charged, fluid spheres. A heuristic assumption relating pressure, energy density, the radial velocity of matter, and the electric-charge distribution is introduced. This ansatz, together with matching the boundaries with those of the Reissner–Nordstrom–Vaidya solution, leads to a system of ordinary differential equations for quantities evaluated at the surface. The integration allows one to obtain the profile of the physical variables for any piece of material via the Einstein–Maxwell equations. As an example of the procedure, a particular model is worked out in some detail.