Abstract:
We study the gravitational behaviour of a spherically symmetric radiating star when
the fluid particles are in geodesic motion. We transform the governing equation into
a simpler form which allows for a general analytic treatment. We find that Bernoulli,
Riccati and confluent hypergeometric equations are possible. These admit solutions
in terms of elementary functions and special functions. Particular models contain the
Minkowski spacetime and the Friedmann dust spacetime as limiting cases. Our infinite
family of solutions contains specific models found previously. For a particular metric
we briefly investigate the physical features, derive the temperature profiles and plot
the behaviour of the casual and acasual temperatures.
