Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-general-relativity-and-cosmology-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2018/2/b/solution

Assume has period , in the regular bulk, and consider a unit proper length in . The proper transverse area element is , while the mass density is . The axial boundary term in the mass of a cylindrical spacetime is therefore
Choose the usual deficit branch , so . Continuity of the induced metric requires . If there is no distributional thin shell at , continuity of the extrinsic curvature also requires . A jump in would add a surface-layer stress and cannot simply be discarded.
Using the printed inner condition , these assumptions yield
This is the literal smooth-bulk answer. It is negative for the ordinary deficit range, so it must not be silently replaced by the usual positive cosmic-string mass formula.
For comparison, a regular axis with proper radial coordinate and angular period requires and , since the circumference-to-radius ratio must approach . Under that different regular-axis condition the same integral gives
The original PDF really prints the derivative limit zero. It describes either a nonregular axis or an inner geometry different from an ordinary smooth string core; any additional singular-axis matter is not included in the bulk integral above and would need its own stress specification. Standard regular-core matching can also require an offset in the exterior radial origin. Thus the regular-axis formula is a qualified physical interpretation, not a derivation from the printed zero. For a general exterior branch replace by in the boundary derivative.

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