Hollow cosmic string: The general-relativistic hollow cylinder.

We determine the different possible space-time metrics inside an infinite rotating hollow cylinder with given energy density and longitudinal and azimuthal stresses, the metric outside the cylinder being chosen of the spinning cosmic string type. The solutions we obtain for various domains of values of the cylinder parameters include a space-time with topologically Euclidean spatial sections, a black-hole solution, a quasi-regular solution, and various wormhole solutions. A solution which is regular only if the longitudinal dimension is compactified might approximately describe spontaneous compactification of the cylinder to a torus. ∗E-mail: [email protected]