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# Barnacle: An Assembly Algorithm for Clone-based Sequences of Whole Genomes

## Details of Input

In this section, we describe the input for Barnacle, which includes the sequence information of BACs and fragments, overlap information and orientation information.

### BACs and fragments

A BAC consists of a contiguous stretch of DNA from a chromosome. The associated data with each BAC consists of the estimated length of the BAC, the phase of the BAC, the number of fragments, each fragment’s sequence and the chromosome of the BAC, if assigned.

Table 1 shows an example of BAC $`AC002092.1`$ with estimated length 95456bp has four fragments. Fragment $`AC002092.1\stackrel{~}{}1`$ is the sequence from 1 to 888 in the GenBank record of $`AC002092.1`$. Notice that we do not know the actual sequence of each BAC but we know the sequence of each of its fragments, which are the preassemblies of the shotgun reads of the BAC produced by some assemblers, such as PHRAP (Green, unpublished).

Depending on the raw data coverage, BACs are categorized into three phases. Phases 1 and 2 are the draft sequences; phase 3 comprises the finished sequences. For a phase 1 BAC, the fragments of the BAC are not necessarily disjoint, and the order and orientation of fragments are in general unknown. For a phase 2 BAC, the fragments are disjoint and the order of fragments is known. A phase 3 BAC is a finished sequence, i.e. only one fragment. In addition, for some phase 1 BACs, some partial fragment order information and end fragment information are also available.

### Overlap Information

Based on local alignments of all fragment sequences against all fragment sequences, we further process two types of valid overlaps between fragments: dovetail overlap and complete containment (see Fig. 1). The sequence identity of the overlaps has to be at least $`97\%`$ and end-allowed-error (as shown in Fig. 1) is taken to be $`350`$bp for finished sequences and $`\mathrm{min}\{\text{10\% of the fragment length},1000\}`$bp otherwise.

Also, according to the annotation of some finished sequences, some overlaps are generated. These are called nt-pairs. These overlaps include $`0`$bp overlaps, i.e., the fragments do not overlap but are consecutive to each other. The nt-pairs are supposed to be true overlaps if the annotations are correct and they are generated accordingly.

### Orientation Information

There are additional sequences from paired-end plasmid reads. These sequences are aligned against all fragment sequences. Based on these alignments, the relative orientation of fragment pairs is obtained as input.

## Results and the comparison with the public assembly

In this section, we present the result of our algorithm applied to the input of the December 2001 freeze of the public working draft of the human genome. First, we describe the details of the input of the December 2001 freeze. Then we present and compare the results with the NCBI’s assembly (Build 28).

### Input of the December 2001 freeze

The sequence information with chromosome assignments, local alignments of all-against-all fragment sequences, local alignments of all fragment sequences against plasmid reads sequences were provided by NCBI. We further processed these local alignments to generate valid fragment pair overlaps and relative orientation of fragment pairs. The details of the December 2001 freeze are shown in Table 2.

### Results on the December 2001 freeze

We assemble $`219,031`$ non-singleton fragments into $`12726`$ subcontigs, with length $`2.51`$ Gbp. From these subcontigs, we obtain a clone graph of $`33929`$ BACs in $`2195`$ connected components, which consists of 23145 BACs in 2052 interval connected components and 1078 BACs in 143 non-interval connected components. Upon resolving non-interval components, $`139`$ problematic BACs, which are either suspicious chimeras or contains unidentified repeats, are removed. The result is $`33722`$ non-singleton BACs in $`2443`$ interval components, as shown in Table 3. We remove $`8189`$ $`(=259230251041)`$ fragments based on our FN detection which indicates the fragments should be contained in some subcontigs.

A graphical display of the assembly of December 2001 freeze of the working draft of the human genome is available at (http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/`~`vchoi).

### Comparison with NCBI’s assembly

We compare our results with NCBI’s assembly on December 2001 freeze (see Table 4). The $`29537`$ $`(=251928222391)`$ fragments were absent from NCBI’s build for reasons we do not know. To further measure the quality of the assembly, we introduce the definition of warp $`=\frac{\text{assembled BAC length}}{\text{estimated BAC length}}`$, which is the ratio of the assembled BAC length over the estimated BAC length. See Table 5 for the comparison. There are 1016 BACs in our assembly with assembled BAC length more than 250 Kbp (the longest one is $`732,527`$ bp), while there are 3786 such BACs (with the longest one $`19,436,525`$ bp) in NCBI’s assembly. We conjecture that the number would be even worse if they had not thrown away the 29K fragments. Note that while it is true that the warped BACs are misassembled, it is not necessary that the non-warped BACs are correctly assembled. Indeed, the suspicious chimeric BACs we detected are usually non-warped in NCBI’s assembly because of the way their assembly is done. To measure the accuracy of the assembly, it is important to understand the method or the algorithm of the assembly.

## Discussion

Our algorithm is very efficient. It takes 3 minutes on a Pentium III (933 MHz) computer to assemble the public working draft of the human genome after preprocessing to the input format as described. For the same step, GigAssembler takes about two hours on a cluster of 100 Pentium III CPUs. We only know it takes less than one day by NCBI’s assembler but do not know the actual time. Most importantly, unlike the other two algorithms, Barnacle is based on a mathematically justifiable (see section Methods for details) approach for assembling the sequences. The algorithm not only can detect the inconsistency of underlying data but also can be well adapted to many situations which may arise as the technology changes and more data becomes available (for example, see \[Choi et al. 2002b\]).

Also, we would like to note that another advantage of our algorithmic approach is that we make better use of the available data. As it was also pointed out in \[Myers 1999\], the clone-overlaps inferred from the sequences are more informative than from the fingerprint data. While the NCBI algorithm does not make use of the fingerprint-map as GigAssembler does, the way NCBI makes use of the fragment overlaps to infer the clone overlaps is in the traditional, less informative physical-mapping clone overlap fashion. More precisely, in physical-mapping, one only knows whether two clones overlap by some common fingerprints, rather than at which ends they overlap, while such information is explicit in the fragment overlaps. See Figure 2 for this important distinction. In particular, NCBI formulates a Maximal Interval Subgraph (MIS) problem (which is NP-hard) to obtain a clone ordering, where the weight of a clone-overlap is the summation of weights of all the corresponding fragment pairs, which are assigned by some score functions. In contrast, we first “conservatively” assemble fragments, which uses the full information of fragment overlaps (and not just whether two fragments overlap), and then infer the clone overlaps from these subassemblies.

It is worthwhile to point out that it is theoretically impossible to assemble the true assembly based only on the sequence overlap information, although the way we resolve the repeat problem is justified by considering the consistency of overlaps and the interval graph formalism. Indeed the assemblies are far from perfect. For example, the assemblies of those “warped” BACs whose assembled length is greater than 250Kb are obviously incorrect. These misassemblies might be largely due to undetected FNs, or they might be due to over-collapse of repetitive regions, which do not destroy the interval graph property; for example, repeats which occur at one end of contigs due to the lack of coverage or repeats which are longer than an entire BAC. More biological information is needed to resolve these cases. For instance, the 500Kb inverted repeat on chromosome Y is resolved by using the annotation of sequences in the GenBank. Also, the detected suspicious errors, which include chimeras, chromosome misassignments, wrong annotation of some finished sequences and fragment misassemblies need further follow-up and verification by the sequencing centers. We believe that in order to achieve a high-quality assembly, an iterative process involving collaboration with the sequencing centers is necessary.

An original goal of the Human Genome Project is to provide an accurate reference sequence of the euchromatic portions of all human chromosomes \[Collins et at. 1998\] and it is essential for an assembler to resolve repeats correctly in order to achieve accurate results \[Eichler 2001\]. It is our hope that future (automated) assemblers for clone-based sequences of whole genomes (including other higher organisms, such as mouse, maize and rice etc.) will be developed and improve on this well justified framework. Since the human genome project, new sequencing strategies have been developed, e.g., hybrid of clone-based and whole-genome shotgun. Nevertheless, we believe researchers can benefit from the algorithmic skills to develop the new assemblers. The source code of Barnacle is freely availabe at (http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/`~`vchoi).

## Methods

Before we describe the idea behind our algorithm, we introduce some terminology.

We say an overlap is true if the fragments are from the overlapping segments of the genome, otherwise the overlap is repeat-induced (Fig. 3\[Myers et al. 2000\]. The overlaps which are not true are called False Positives (FPs). In other words, repeat-induced overlaps are FPs. On the other hand, the overlaps which are true but not detected are called False Negatives (FNs). FPs and FNs are called noise.

The assembly problem would be straightforward if we could divine all true overlaps, i.e., if the data of overlaps were noise-free. The key objective is thus to clean up the noise as much as possible and assemble the fragments according to the true overlaps.

Observe that for an overlap to be true, it is necessary for the overlap to be “consistent” (Fig. 4). However, “consistency” is not sufficient for a true overlap. There might be some consistent but repeat-induced overlaps, which are due to either the lack of coverage or long repeats (Fig. 5). We call a consistent but repeat-induced overlap a consistent repeat-induced overlap, otherwise we call it an inconsistent repeat-induced overlap.

A contig (subcontig resp.) is a contiguous region that is covered by a set of overlapping BACs (fragments resp.).

The basic idea behind our algorithm is illustrated in Figure 6 and Table 6 shows the high level description of the algorithm. In following, we outline the idea of each step. The details of the implementation of the algorithm are described in \[Choi 2001\](http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/`~`vchoi).

“Conservatively” assemble fragments into subcontigs. First, we assemble consistent overlapping fragments into subcontigs. Before we describe the algorithmic implementation, we introduce some terminology. A fragment is called a subfragment if the fragment is completely contained in another fragment, otherwise the fragment is maximal. Making use of the maximality property of the latter, we efficiently identify and assemble consistent overlapping maximal fragments (once again readers are invited to read \[Choi 2001\] for the simple algorithmic trick). Then consistent overlapping subfragments are assembled into the contig of their corresponding maximal fragments. With this implementation, $`219,031`$ non-singleton fragments of the December 2001 freeze are assembled into $`12,726`$ subcontigs in about 25 seconds on a Pentium III computer.

We then deduce clone-overlaps from these subcontigs: two clones overlap if and only if there is at least one fragment pair of the corresponding clones overlapping in a subcontig. Then the conflicting overlaps are resolved according to the clone-overlaps (Fig. 7). Unlike the use of score functions to resolve conflicts, we are making use of the BAC information of fragments and use the assembly obtained by consistent overlaps to resolve inconsistent overlaps. This approach is well justified because the consistent overlaps, which are necessary condition for true overlaps, give a good indication whether two BACs overlaps or not. Note that it is this approach that allow us to naturally make use of the segmental duplication database without substantial changing the algorithm.

As mentioned before, these subcontigs might still contain some consistent repeat-induced overlaps.

Detect and remove consistent repeat-induced overlaps and chimeric clones. We use the linear structure of the chromosome to detect the consistent repeat-induced overlaps. The linear structure of the sequence would be destroyed if the repeat-induced overlaps were used (Fig. 8a). Mathematically speaking, the corresponding clone graph, whose vertices are clones and there is an edge between two vertices if and only if the two corresponding clones overlap, must be an interval graph. (Remark: This is true with the assumption that the length of gaps within a BAC is short enough such that there is at least one fragment pair overlapping if two BAC overlaps. However, this assumption is no longer true in the current working draft of the human genome because some BACs were heavily trimmed resulting some of the BACs only a few hundreds bp long (much shorter than a possible gap). Comparing April 2001 freeze with December 2001 freeze, we found that 1200 BACs whose length have been reduced more than half of its original length. Note that our algorithm is robust enough that with a slight modification of resolving non-interval graph procedure, one can heuristically take care of this possibility. ) Intuitively, imagine the genome sequence as a line, then each BAC is an interval of the line such that two BAC sequences overlap if and only if the corresponding intervals overlap (Fig. 9a). In other words, if the corresponding clone graph is not interval, the assembly is incorrect. For example, BAC AC019248 in NCBI’s Build 28 is misassembled (Fig. 9b). By resolving the non-interval connected components of the clone graph, we detect and remove suspicious repeat-induced overlaps and chimeric clones (Fig. 8b). Instead of resorting to the NP-hard Maximal Interval Subgraph problem, which does not characterize the real biology, to get an interval graph, we design an efficient algorithm for resolving the non-interval graph (see Table 7 for the idea). The interval representation (and hence the ordering) of clones is obtained from the resulting interval clone graph by a linear-time interval graph recognition algorithm \[Corneil et al. 2001\].

Orient and order subcontigs. According to the interval representation of clones, subcontigs are ordered and the orientation of “long” subcontigs is determined. According to the ordering of clones, we orient subcontigs by flipping such that the ranks of BACs in each subcontig are in non-decreasing order, and assign coordinates to subcontigs so that they can be ordered by sorting according to these coordinates lexicographically. Note that our interval representation of clones is quite informative in that most of the subcontigs can be ordered unambiguously according to this reliable information. Thus we do not need to employ the quite noisy and uncertain information from plasmid reads, ESTs and mRNAs to order the subcontigs, as does GigAssembler, which resorted to the Bellman-Ford algorithm for testing the feasibilities of the information. Also, the interval representation allows us to detect FNs while ordering subcontigs. First observe that the corresponding end BACs of the adjacent subcontigs must be either the same or overlapping (Fig. 10a). We call this necessary condition the adjacency condition. Accordingly, when some subcontigs cannot be ordered such that they satisfy the adjacency condition, it indicates that there might be FNs (Fig. 10b). To further verify the identification of the FNs, we aligned the involved fragments with their overlapping clones. Examining these alignments reveals the several possible causes, which include the consequences of repeat-masking, low accuracy of some draft sequences, chimeric fragments or fragment misassemblies and polymorphism. On the other hand, some subcontigs might be ties in which the adjacency condition is always satisfied for any permutation of them. In other words, the information is not sufficient to determine their order. In this case, we employ some additional information to break these ties.

Adjust the ordering and correct the orientation of the subcontigs using additional information. The additional information includes the identification of the end fragments of BACs, as well as, the partial order of some fragments. For each BAC which has end fragment information, i.e., one or two fragments, first according to their current position in the contig, we determine which one is the left end fragment and which one is the right end fragment. Then we orient the fragments so that they are the extreme fragments of the BAC. To ensure the reliability of the information, these adjustments (order and orientation) are always subject to the adjacency condition, i.e., whether we can adjust the order and orientation according to the information such that the adjacency condition is still satisfied. Similarly, the adjustments are being done for each group of the ordered fragments.

Finally, the relative orientation of fragment pairs generated from plasmid reads are used to orient the subcontigs which are not “long” enough to have been determined. According to the interval representation of clones, one can determine how confident the orientation of subcontigs is. For example, for the subcontigs which are long enough so that the smallest BAC and the largest BAC are not overlapping in the subcontig, the correctness of the orientation is sure. The relative orientation of fragment pairs generated from plasmid reads are used to orient the unsure subcontigs. For each unsure subcontig, we organize all its relative orientations into a list of agreeing subcontigs and a list of disagreeing subcontigs. We then progressively change the orientation of unsure subcontigs such that the number of disagreeing subcontigs is minimized.

## Acknowledgements

Vicky Choi was supported by a Fellowship from the Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology (PMMB) at the Florida State University, with funding from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Interfaces Program and partially supported by NIH Supplemental Visiting Fellowship while visiting NCBI. We acknowledge NCBI for introducing the problem and providing access to the data. We would like to thank Navin Goyal, JinSheng Lai, Knut Reinert, Granger Sutton, Wojciech Makalowski, Dannie Durand and Sachin Lodha for their critical reading and comments. Special thanks to Craig Nevill-Manning for providing the Pentium III computer to finish up the work, Joe Nadeau for the encouragement and Evan Eichler for the comments and advice.

## Figure Legends

Figure 1: Two types of valid overlaps between a fragment pair. (1) dovetail overlap vs. (2) complete containment. Because of the draft quality of sequences, end errors are allowed (shown as dashed lines).

Figure 2: Sequence overlap vs. fingerprint overlap. (1) There are 3 sequence overlaps, but they are incompatible. At least one of them is FP. (2) Treated as fingerprint overlaps (whether two fragments overlap) would result in an incorrect interval representation of the 3 BACs.

Figure 3: True vs. repeat-induced overlaps. Consider the overlap of two fragments A and B. There are two possible inferences: (1) The overlap is true, where the fragments are from the overlapping segments of the genome. (2) The overlap is induced by repeated sequence R.

Figure 4: Consistent vs. inconsistent overlaps. Left, fragment $`b`$ overlaps with fragments $`a`$ and $`c`$ as shown, and $`a`$ and $`c`$ also overlap accordingly. The overlap of $`b`$ and $`a`$ is consistent. Right, fragment $`g`$ overlaps with fragments $`f`$ and $`h`$ as shown, but $`f`$ and $`h`$ do not overlap accordingly. The overlaps of $`g`$ and $`f`$, $`g`$ and $`h`$, are inconsistent. At least one of them is repeat-induced.

Figure 5: Overlaps that are consistent but not true. There are two possibilities: (1) lack of coverage: absence of both fragments L and R; (2) long repeats: the repeat is long enough such that the overlaps are consistent.

Figure 6: The idea behind our algorithm. Conceptually, the algorithm consists of three steps. (A) Fragments are “conservatively” assembled into subcontigs. The details of this step constitute steps 1-6 of the algorithm. (B) Consistent repeat-induced overlaps and chimeric clones will destroy the interval property of the clone graph. Resolving this step corresponds to step 7 of the algorithm. (C) According to the interval realization of clones obtained from the interval clone graph, subcontigs are oriented and ordered in steps 8-10 of the algorithm. Remark: Steps 11-15 of the algorithm, which use additional information to adjust the ordering and correct the orientation, are not shown in this figure.

Figure 7: Resolving inconsistent overlaps. Since $`AC020954.6`$~1 has several consistent overlaps with fragments of BAC $`AC027726.2`$, BAC $`AC020954.6`$ overlaps with BAC $`AC027726.2`$. The inconsistent overlaps of $`AC020954.6`$~1 and $`AC008760.6`$~1, $`AC020954.6`$~1 and $`AC027726.2`$~33 are resolved according to the clone-overlap. In this case, the overlap of $`AC020954.6`$~1 and $`AC027726.2`$~33 is chosen, i.e. the overlap of $`AC020954.6`$~1 and $`AC008760.6`$~1 is repeat-induced.

Figure 8: a The result of collapsing a repeat region. The blue and green denote contigs covered by a set of overlapping BACs; while the red represents a BAC consisting of 4 fragments. For illustrative purposes, suppose the repeat region occurs in the two fragments of the red BAC. The linear structure of the sequence would be destroyed if the repeat region were to be collapsed. b Suspicious chimeric BACs. Left, the problematic region occurs in the middle of a pair of contigs, the BAC is the most suspicious chimera. Right, when the problematic region occurs at one end of one contig, it is difficult to tell that it is due to a repeat or whether the BAC is chimeric. To ensure the quality, the BAC is removed.

Figure 9: a Geometric view of the sequences. The genome sequence is a line; each BAC corresponds to an interval of the line. b Above, the contig of BAC $`AC019248`$ in NCBI’s Build 28, which consists of 10 fragments (only 9 fragments were used in NCBI’s Build 28), is non-interval. Biologically, the misassembly of BAC $`AC019248`$ is also evident by its assembled length of $`1,556,292`$bp. Below, Barnacle’s interval-graph assembly of the corresponding contig.

Figure 10: a The condition of adjacent subcontigs. The corresponding end BACs of the adjacent subcontigs must be either the same or overlapping. b FNs detection. No matter how we order the subcontigs, the subcontig in the box will violate the adjacency condition. This is due to a FN as the arrow shows.


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# Exact vacuum solution of a (1+2)–dimensional Poincaré gauge theory: BTZ solution with torsion

## I Introduction

On first sight, $`(1+2)`$–dimensional gravity seems to be rather boring. In 3 dimensions (3D), the Weyl tensor vanishes and the curvature is fully determined by the Ricci tensor and thus, via the Einstein equation, by the energy-momentum alone. Outside the sources the curvature is zero and there are no propagating degrees of freedom, i.e., no gravitational waves. Moreover, there is no Newtonian limit. But even if spacetime is flat, it is not trivial globally. A point particle, e.g., generates the spacetime geometry of a cone. In such a geometry we have light bending, double images, etc. The spacetimes for N particles can be constructed similarly by gluing together patches of $`(1+2)`$D Minkowski space. This was occasionally investigated since the late 1950s, see Deser et al. deser84  and the review of Carlip Carlip98 .

Some problems in $`(1+3)`$D gravity reduce to an effective ($`1+2`$)D theory, like the cosmic string, e.g.; the high–temperature behavior of ($`1+3`$)D theories also motivates the study of $`(1+2)`$D theories. In this context, Deser, Jackiw, and Tempelton (DJT) proposed a $`(1+2)`$D gravitational gauge model with topologically generated mass deser82 . However, the real push for $`(1+2)`$D gravitational models came when Witten formulated the $`(1+2)`$D Einstein theory as a Chern–Simons theory, in a similar way as proposed by Achúcarro and Townsend amat , and showed its exact solvability in terms of a finite number of degrees of freedom witten88 ; witten89 . Also de Sitter gravity, conformal gravity, and supergravity, in $`(1+2)`$D, turn out to be equivalent to Chern–Simons theories horne89 ; koehler90 ; dereli00 ; DereliS , see also the recent monograph of Blagojević blagojevic .

Mielke and Baekler (MB) proposed a $`(1+2)`$D topological gauge model with torsion and curvature mielke91 ; baekler92  from which the DJT–model can be derived by imposing the constraint of vanishing torsion by means of a Lagrange multiplier term. Gravitational theories in $`(1+2)`$D with torsion, see also Tresguerres tresguerres92  and Kawai kawai94 , are analogous to the continuum theory of lattice defects in crystal physics, in particular, the corresponding theory of dislocations relates to a torsion of the underlying continuum, see Kröner kroener81 , Kleinert kleinert , Dereli and Verçin dereli87 ; dereli91 , Katanaev and Volovich katanaev91 , and Kohler kohler95 . The fresh approach of Lazar lazar00 ; lazar02\_1 ; lazar02\_2  promises additional insight.

The next important impact on $`(1+2)`$D gravity was the discovery of a black hole solution by Bañados, Teitelboim, and Zanelli (BTZ) banados92 . The BTZ black hole is locally isometric to anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime. It can be obtained, see Brill brill , from the AdS spacetime as a quotient of the latter with the group of finite isometries. It is asymptotically anti–de Sitter and has no curvature singularity at the origin. Nevertheless, it is clearly a black hole: it has an event horizon and, in the rotating case, an inner horizon. Also electrically and magnetically charged generalizations are known. For extensive discussions see the reviews banados93 ; carlip95\_1 ; carlip95\_2 ; Carlip98 ; banados99 ; birmingham01 . The relevance to $`(1+3)`$D gravity can also be seen from the fact that the BTZ solution can be derived from the $`(1+3)`$D Plebański–Carter metric by means of a dimensional reduction procedure, see Cataldo et al. cataldo00 . By means of the BTZ solution, many interesting questions can be addressed in the context of quantum gravity. For example, Strominger computed the entropy of the BTZ black hole microscopically strominger98 . There is also a relationship between the BTZ black hole and string theory, see Hemming and Keski–Vakkuri hemming01 .

Thus, although $`(1+2)`$D gravity lacks many important features of real, $`(1+3)`$D gravity, it keeps enough characteristic structure to be of interest, especially in view of the fact that in the $`(1+2)`$D case many calculations can be done which are far too involved in $`(1+3)`$D for the time being.

In this paper we show that the BTZ-metric can be embedded in the framework of the specific Poincaré gauge model proposed by Mielke and Baekler. We arrive at a “BTZ-solution with torsion”, see Table 1, and discuss some of its characteristic properties.—

In section II, we introduce briefly the MB–model and its field equations. In vacuum, these yield constant torsion and constant curvature and, by a suitable ansatz, we obtain the new solution displayed in Table 1. In section III, we discuss some of the properties of our new solution. In particular, we compute its quasi–local energy and angular momentum expressions as it was suggested to us by Nester, Chen, Tung, and Wu chen94 ; chen99 ; chen00 ; nester00 ; wu01 ; wu03 .

In section IV we derive the general conformally flat vacuum solution and show its relation to the solution of Table 1. In the final section V, we point out that Cartan’s spiral staircase, an example of a simple non–Euclidean connection that is constructed from 3D Euclidean space, can be understood as a specific vacuum solution of the MB-model as well as a solution of 3D Einstein–Cartan theory with matter of constant pressure and constant torque.

## II Mielke-Baekler model and its BTZ-like exact solution

Our geometric arena is 3D Riemann-Cartan space. The basic variables are the coframe $`\vartheta ^\alpha =e_i{}_{}{}^{\alpha }dx^i`$ and the Lorentz connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_i{}_{}{}^{\alpha \beta }dx^i`$. Latin letters $`i,j,\mathrm{}=0,1,2`$ denote holonomic or coordinate indices and Greek letters $`\alpha ,\beta ,\mathrm{}=\widehat{0},\widehat{1},\widehat{2}`$ anholonomic or frame indices. In an orthonormal coframe, which we assume for the rest of our article, the metric is given by $`g=\vartheta ^{\widehat{0}}\vartheta ^{\widehat{0}}+\vartheta ^{\widehat{1}}\vartheta ^{\widehat{1}}+\vartheta ^{\widehat{2}}\vartheta ^{\widehat{2}}`$. In such an orthonormal coframe, the connection is antisymmetric $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\beta \alpha }`$. The frame dual to the coframe reads $`e_\alpha =e^i{}_{\alpha }{}^{}_{i}^{}`$, with $`e_\alpha \vartheta ^\beta =\delta _\alpha ^\beta `$, where $``$ denotes the interior product. We introduce the abbreviation $`\vartheta ^{\alpha \beta \mathrm{}}:=\vartheta ^\alpha \vartheta ^\beta \mathrm{}`$ and the $`\eta `$-basis ( denotes the Hodge-star operator) $`\eta :={}_{}{}^{}1,\eta _\alpha :={}_{}{}^{}\vartheta _{\alpha }^{},\eta _{\alpha \beta }:={}_{}{}^{}\vartheta _{\alpha \beta }^{},\eta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }:={}_{}{}^{}\vartheta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }^{}.`$ In 3 dimensions, $`\eta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }`$ is the totally antisymmetric unit tensor. For our conventions, one should compare hehl95 .

From the gauge potentials coframe and connection, we can derive the field strengths torsion and curvature ($`D`$ denotes the exterior covariant derivative),

$$T^\alpha :=D\vartheta ^\alpha =d\vartheta ^\alpha +\mathrm{\Gamma }_\beta {}_{}{}^{\alpha }\vartheta ^\beta ,R_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }:=d\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma {}_{}{}^{\beta }.$$
(1)
In a Riemann-Cartan space, the connection can be expressed in terms of the torsion and the anholonomity 2-form $`\mathrm{\Omega }^\alpha :=d\vartheta ^\alpha `$,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }=e_{[\alpha }\mathrm{\Omega }_{\beta ]}\frac{1}{2}(e_\alpha e_\beta \mathrm{\Omega }_\gamma )\vartheta ^\gamma e_{[\alpha }T_{\beta ]}+\frac{1}{2}(e_\alpha e_\beta T_\gamma )\vartheta ^\gamma ,$$

see hehl95  Eq.(3.10.6), for $`dg_{\alpha \beta }=0`$ and $`Q_{\alpha \beta }=0`$.

Mielke and Baekler mielke91 ; baekler92  considered the following Lagrangian:

$`V_{\mathrm{MB}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\chi }{2\mathrm{}}}R^{\alpha \beta }\eta _{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\mathrm{}}}\eta +{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _\mathrm{T}}{2\mathrm{}^2}}\vartheta ^\alpha T_\alpha `$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _\mathrm{L}}{2}}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }d\mathrm{\Gamma }_\beta {}_{}{}^{\alpha }{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_\beta {}_{}{}^{\gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma {}_{}{}^{\alpha })+L_{\mathrm{mat}}.`$
The first term, the usual Einstein-Cartan term, is followed by the cosmological term and the Chern-Simons terms for torsion and curvature, see hehl91 . The last term denotes the matter Lagrangian that is minimally coupled to gravity. The 3D gravitational constant $`\mathrm{}`$ guarantees dimensional consistency. The Einstein-Cartan piece is multiplied by a dimensionless constant $`\chi `$, with $`\chi =1`$ or $`\chi =0`$, and the Chern-Simons pieces by the dimensionless “vacuum angles” $`\theta _\mathrm{T}`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{L}`$.

From this model we can derive the Deser-Jackiw-Tempelton (DJT) model of topological massive gravity deser82  by adding a Lagrange multiplier term $`\lambda _\alpha T^\alpha `$ to the Lagrangian $`V_{\mathrm{MB}}`$ thereby enforcing vanishing torsion. Quite recently, Blagojević and Vasilić blagojevic03  considered a restricted MB-model with $`\theta _\mathrm{T}^2+\chi \mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}^2=0`$, $`\theta _\mathrm{L}=0`$, and $`\chi =1`$, which yields, in vacuum, the field equation $`R^{\alpha \beta }=0`$, i.e., vanishing curvature, introducing thereby the teleparallel geometry of empty spacetime dynamically. A similar teleparallel model (including torsion square terms) was developed by Sousa and Maluf maluf03 .

We find the field equations by variation of (2) with respect to coframe and (Lorentz) connection:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\chi }{2}}\eta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }R^{\beta \gamma }+\mathrm{\Lambda }\eta _\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{\theta _\mathrm{T}}{\mathrm{}}}T_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha ,`$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\chi }{2}}\eta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }T^\gamma {\displaystyle \frac{\theta _\mathrm{T}}{2\mathrm{}}}\vartheta _{\alpha \beta }\theta _\mathrm{L}\mathrm{}R_{\alpha \beta }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\tau _{\alpha \beta }.`$ (4)
The 2-forms of the material energy-momentum and spin currents are defined by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha :=\delta L_{\mathrm{mat}}/\delta \theta ^\alpha `$ and $`\tau _{\alpha \beta }:=\delta L_{\mathrm{mat}}/\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha ^\beta `$, respectively.

The field equations represent inhomogeneous algebraic equations in torsion $`T^\alpha `$ and curvature $`R^{\alpha \beta }`$. We can resolve them with respect to $`T^\alpha `$ and $`R^{\alpha \beta }`$ mielke91 ; baekler92 . The vacuum field equations result by equating $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha `$ and $`\tau _{\alpha \beta }`$ to zero. Then, by assuming $`\chi ^2+2\theta _\mathrm{T}\theta _\mathrm{L}0`$, we obtain $`T_\alpha =2𝒯\eta _\alpha /\mathrm{}`$ and $`R_{\alpha \beta }=\vartheta _{\alpha \beta }/\mathrm{}^2`$; for the definitions of $`𝒯`$ and $``$, see Table 1. The torsion has only an axial part and, similarly, the curvature a scalar part, both with 1 independent component.

A solution is specified by a pair $`(\vartheta ^\alpha ,\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta })`$. We start with a static and circularly symmetric (orthonormal) coframe,

$$\vartheta ^{\widehat{t}}=N(r)dt,\vartheta ^{\widehat{r}}=\frac{dr}{N(r)},\vartheta ^{\widehat{\varphi }}=G(r)\left[W(r)dt+d\varphi \right],$$
(5)
where $`N(r),G(r)`$, and $`W(r)`$ are free functions. Since the torsion is known from the field equations, we can substitute it, together with (5), into (II). This yields $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }`$ which, together with the known curvature, leads to

$`G=A+Br,W={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{(A+br)^2}}+\beta ,`$ (6)
$`N^2(r)=C+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{(rB+A)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}}{B^2}}\left(A^22ABrB^2r^2\right),`$ (7)
where $`A,B,C,\alpha ,\beta `$ are integration constants. Moreover, we introduced an effective cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, see Table 1. By means of the coordinate transformation $`rAr+B`$ and $`\varphi \varphi +\beta t`$ and some change in notation, we arrive at our new BTZ-like solution with torsion, see Table 1 for its explicit form. The topological terms in the Lagrangian will induce an effective cosmological constant even if the ‘bare’ cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ vanishes. If we put $`\theta _\mathrm{L}=\theta _\mathrm{T}=0`$, then $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`T^\alpha =0`$, and we fall back to the standard BTZ solution banados92 .

## III Properties of our solution

### III.1 Autoparallels and extremals

In a Riemann–Cartan space, the autoparallels (straightest lines) and the extremals or geodesics (longest/shortest lines) do not coincide in general. An autoparallel curve $`x^i(s)`$ obeys, in terms of a suitable affine parameter $`s`$, the equation

$$\frac{d^2x^k(s)}{ds^2}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}\frac{dx^i(s)}{ds}\frac{dx^j(s)}{ds}=0.$$
(8)
The (holonomic) components of the connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^k`$ depend on metric and torsion according to

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}K_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k},K_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}:=\frac{1}{2}(T_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}+T_j{}_{}{}^{k}{}_{i}{}^{}T^k{}_{ij}{}^{}),$$
(9)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{ij}^k`$ is the Christoffel symbol and $`K_{ij}^k`$ the contortion. In (8), only the symmetric part of the connection enters. By means of (9), it can be expressed as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{(ij)}{}_{}{}^{k}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{(ij)}{}_{}{}^{k}+T^k{}_{(ij)}{}^{}.$$
(10)
The extremals are determined by the metrical properties of spacetime alone and follow from the variation of the world length $`\sqrt{g_{ij}\dot{x}^i\dot{x}^j}`$ in the standard way:

$$\frac{d^2x^k(s)}{ds^2}+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}\frac{dx^i(s)}{ds}\frac{dx^j(s)}{ds}=0.$$
(11)
For our solution, see Table 1,

$$T_{ijk}=2\frac{𝒯}{\mathrm{}}\eta _{ijk}T_{i(jk)}=0.$$
(12)
Thus, the torsion dependent piece drops out in (10) and (8). Autoparallels and extremals coincide and we get the same geodesics as in the case of the standard BTZ–solution in Riemannian spacetime.

### III.2 Killing vectors

In a Riemann-Cartan space we call $`\xi =\xi ^\alpha e_\alpha `$ a Killing vector if the latter is the generator of a symmetry transformation of the metric and of the connection according to

$$\mathrm{\pounds }_\xi g=0,\mathrm{\pounds }_\xi \mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }=0,$$
(13)
see (hehl95, , p.83). These two relations can be recast into a more convenient form,

$`e_{(\alpha }\stackrel{~}{D}\xi _{\beta )}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (14)
$`D(e_\alpha \stackrel{}{D}\xi ^\beta )+\xi R_\alpha ^\beta `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (15)
where $`\stackrel{~}{D}`$ refers to the Riemannian part of the connection (Levi–Civita connection) and $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ to the transposed connection: $`\stackrel{}{D}:=d+\underset{\alpha }{\overset{}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{}_{}{}^{\beta }:=d+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }+e_\alpha T^\beta `$. For our solution we find two Killing vectors, namely

$$\stackrel{(t)}{\xi }:=_t\text{and}\stackrel{(\varphi )}{\xi }:=_\varphi ,$$
(16)
that is, the same Killing vectors as in the case of the standard BTZ solution.

### III.3 Quasilocal conserved quantities

Now we consider the conserved quantities of our solution. Nester, Chen, and Wu nester00 , see also the literature quoted there, proposed a quasi–local boundary expression within metric–affine gravity, a theory the spacetime of which goes beyond the Riemann–Cartan structure in that it carries additionally a nonmetricity. We adapt the formulas of nester00  for the case of vanishing nonmetricty. The derivation starts from a first–order Lagrange $`n`$–form $`V`$ that is at most quadratic in its field strengths $`T^\alpha `$ and $`R^{\alpha \beta }`$. The corresponding momenta read $`H_\alpha :=V/T^\alpha `$ and $`H_{\alpha \beta }:=V/R^{\alpha \beta }`$. The Lagrangian can be decomposed with respect to a vector field $`N`$, with $`Nd\nu =1`$:

$`V`$ $`=`$ $`d\nu NV`$ (17)
$`=:`$ $`d\nu [\left(\mathrm{\pounds }_N\vartheta ^\alpha \right)H_\alpha (\mathrm{\pounds }_N\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta })H^\alpha {}_{\beta }{}^{}N^\alpha _\alpha d𝔅].`$
The Hamilton $`2`$–form $``$ is defined by $`:=N^\alpha _\alpha +d𝔅`$ . Since $`_\alpha `$ turns out to be proportional to the field equations, only the spatial boundary $`1`$–form $`𝔅`$ contributes to the boundary integral of $``$. In order to obtain finite values for the quasi–local “charges”, the boundary term has to be compared to a reference or background solution which will be denoted by a bar over the corresponding symbol. As background, we choose our solution with $`M=0,J=0`$. Moreover, the difference of a quantity $`\alpha `$ between a solution and the background is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha :=\alpha \overline{\alpha }`$. Then, the quasi–local charges are given by nester00

$`𝔅(N)`$ $`:=`$ $`\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill (N\vartheta ^\alpha )\mathrm{\Delta }H_\alpha & +& \mathrm{\Delta }\vartheta ^\alpha (N\overline{H}_\alpha )\hfill \\ \hfill (N\overline{\vartheta }^\alpha )\mathrm{\Delta }H_\alpha & +& \mathrm{\Delta }\vartheta ^\alpha (NH_\alpha )\hfill \end{array}\right\}`$ (23)
$`\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill (\stackrel{}{D}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }N_{}^{\beta })\mathrm{\Delta }H_{\alpha \beta }& +& \mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }(N\overline{H}_{\alpha \beta })\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{(\stackrel{}{D}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }N_{}^{\beta })}\mathrm{\Delta }H_{\alpha \beta }& +& \mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }(NH_{\alpha \beta })\hfill \end{array}\right\}.`$
The upper (lower) line in the braces is chosen if the field strengths (momenta) are prescribed on the boundary. The momenta of our solution read $`H_\alpha =(\theta _\mathrm{T}/2\mathrm{}^2)\vartheta _\alpha `$ and $`H_{\alpha \beta }=(\chi /2\mathrm{})\eta _{\alpha \beta }(\theta _\mathrm{L}/2)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }`$.

We derive the quasi–local energy and angular momentum by taking for the vector field $`N`$ the Killing vectors $`_t`$ or $`_\varphi `$, respectively:

$`\mathrm{}𝔅(_t)`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\theta _\mathrm{L}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{}J𝒯M\right)+\chi \left(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}r^2\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}}r\psi \right)\right]d\varphi `$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\mathrm{}}}\left[(2\theta _\mathrm{L}𝒯^2\theta _\mathrm{T})M2\mathrm{}\theta _\mathrm{L}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}J𝒯+\chi (\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}J2M𝒯)\right]dt,`$
$`\mathrm{}𝔅(_\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\chi }{2}}J+\theta _\mathrm{L}\left(\mathrm{}M𝒯J\right)\right]d\varphi `$ (25)
$`\left[\chi \left(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}r^2\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}}r\psi \right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}\left(\theta _\mathrm{L}𝒯\chi \right)\left(\mathrm{}M𝒯J\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _\mathrm{T}}{2\mathrm{}}}J\right]dt.`$
We assume the existence of the Einstein-Cartan piece, i.e., $`\chi =1`$. In order to obtain total energy and angular momentum, we have to integrate, for $`t=\mathrm{const}`$, the $`𝔅`$’s over a full circle and to perform the limit $`r\mathrm{}`$. For $`𝒯=\theta _\mathrm{T}=\theta _\mathrm{L}=0`$, our solution reduces to the standard BTZ one. In that case, total energy and total angular momentum reduce to $`M`$ and $`J`$. Thus, in our conventions, the gravitational constant is $`\mathrm{}=\pi `$. Moreover, as in general relativity, see Wald (wald84, , p.296), we introduce a factor $`1`$ into the angular momentum:

$`E_{\mathrm{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}\left[\theta _\mathrm{L}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{}J𝒯M\right)+\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}r^2\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}}r\psi \right)\right]𝑑\varphi `$ (26)
$`=`$ $`M2\theta _\mathrm{L}\left(𝒯M\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{}J\right),`$
$`L_{\mathrm{}}`$ $`=`$ $`(1){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}J+\theta _\mathrm{L}\left(\mathrm{}M𝒯J\right)\right]d\varphi `$ (27)
$`=`$ $`J+2\theta _\mathrm{L}\left(\mathrm{}M𝒯J\right).`$
Thus, for $`\theta _\mathrm{L}=0`$, the two integration constants $`M`$ and $`J`$ have their conventional interpretation as energy (mass) and angular momentum, as with the BTZ–metric in general relativity. However, for $`\theta _\mathrm{L}0`$, we find in each case admixtures from the other “charge”, respectively. This is not too surprising, since torsion and curvature emerge in both field equations.

## IV General conformally flat vacuum solution with torsion

The vacuum field equations of the MB model imply constant Riemann–Cartan curvature and constant Riemannian curvature. The Cotton 2–form reads

$$C_\alpha :=DL_\alpha ,L_\alpha :=e_\beta R_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }+\frac{1}{2(n1)}(e_\beta e_\gamma R^{\beta \gamma })\vartheta _\alpha .$$
(28)
The Riemannian Cotton 2–form is zero. Thus, the metric is conformally flat, see, e.g., garcia03 . Hence the ansatz

$$\vartheta ^{\widehat{0}}=\frac{dt}{\mathrm{\Psi }},\vartheta ^{\widehat{1}}=\frac{dx}{\mathrm{\Psi }},\vartheta ^{\widehat{2}}=\frac{dy}{\mathrm{\Psi }},$$
(29)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }(t,x,y)`$, via the 1st field equation, yields,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }^{(t)}(t)+\mathrm{\Psi }^{(x)}(x)+\mathrm{\Psi }^{(y)}(y),$$
(30)
$$_{xx}\mathrm{\Psi }^{(x)}=_{tt}\mathrm{\Psi }^{(t)}=_{yy}\mathrm{\Psi }^{(y)}.$$
(31)
This leads to a general solution with 5 parameters $`A,B,C,D,E`$,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=A\left(t^2+x^2+y^2\right)+Bt+Cx+Dy+E,$$
(32)
with one constraint on the parameters,

$$0=B^2C^2D^2+6AE+\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}.$$
(33)
For $`B=C=D=0`$, $`E=1`$ we recover the usual form of the (anti–)de Sitter metric, for $`A=B=D=E=0`$ the Poincaré metric. Coordinate transformations that yield the BTZ–metric are given in Carlip98 .

In the anti–de Sitter case, the solution reads

$$\vartheta ^\alpha =\frac{dx^\alpha }{\psi },\psi =1\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}}{6}(t^2+x^2+y^2),$$
(34)
$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }=\frac{𝒯}{\mathrm{}}\eta ^{\alpha \beta }+x^{[\alpha }\vartheta ^{\beta ]}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}}{3}.$$
(35)
For $`\theta _T=0`$, we recover the solution of Dereli and Verçin dereli91 .

If the coupling constants are chosen such that

$$\theta _\mathrm{T}^2+\chi \mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}^2=0,$$
(36)
the Riemann–Cartan curvature is zero $`R_{\alpha \beta }=0`$ and the torsion reduces to $`𝒯=\mathrm{}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}}`$. We obtain a teleparallel subcase of the MB–model. The teleparallel sector of the MB–model, defined by (36) and $`\theta _\mathrm{L}=0`$, is extensively studied in blagojevic03 , see also the closely related cases maluf03 ; park98 ; fjelstad01 . We stress that our exact solution carries both, torsion and curvature. Therefore it is more general and should be carefully distinguished from its teleparallel limit.

## V É. Cartan’s spiral staircase

If we put $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{eff}}=0`$, then, see (34) and (35), we arrive at

$$\vartheta ^\alpha =\delta _i^\alpha dx^i,\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }=\frac{𝒯}{\mathrm{}}\eta ^{\alpha \beta }.$$
(37)
The components of the connection are totally antisymmetric: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma \alpha \beta }=e_\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }=(𝒯/\mathrm{})\eta _{\gamma \alpha \beta }`$. The Riemannian curvature vanishes. By simple algebra we find,

$$T^\alpha =2\frac{𝒯}{\mathrm{}}\eta ^\alpha ,\stackrel{~}{R}^{\alpha \beta }=0,R^{\alpha \beta }=\frac{𝒯^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\vartheta ^{\alpha \beta }.$$
(38)
This is a subcase of our solution of Table 1.

In fact, for Euclidean signature, we recover Cartan’s spiral 3D staircase of 1922 cartan22 , see Fig. 1:

> “…imagine a space F which corresponds point by point with a Euclidean space E, the correspondence preserving distances. The difference between the two space is following: two orthogonal triads issuing from two points A and A’ infinitesimally nearby in F will be parallel when the corresponding triads in E may be deduced one from the other by a given helicoidal displacement (of right–handed sense, for example), having as its axis the line joining the origins. The straight lines in F thus correspond to the straight lines in E: They are geodesics. The space F thus defined admits a six parameter group of transformations; it would be our ordinary space as viewed by observers whose perceptions have been twisted. Mechanically, it corresponds to a medium having constant pressure and constant internal torque.”

Obviously, Cartan’s prescriptions are reflected in the solution (37). For (37), autoparallels and extremals coincide. Thus, in the spiral staircase, extremals are Euclidean straight lines. This is apparent in Cartan’s construction.

Cartan apparently had in mind a 3D space with Euclidean signature. For an alternative interpretation of Cartan’s spiral staircase we consider the 3D Einstein–Cartan field equations without cosmological constant:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }R^{\beta \gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha ,`$ (39)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }T^\gamma `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\tau _{\alpha \beta }.`$ (40)
The coframe and the connection of (37), Euclidean signature assumed, form a solution of the Einstein–Cartan field equations with matter provided the energy–momentum current (for Euclidean signature the force stress tensor $`𝔱_\alpha ^\beta `$) and the spin current (here the torque or moment stress tensor $`𝔰_{\alpha \beta }^\gamma `$) are constant,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha =:𝔱_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }\eta _{\beta }^{}=\frac{𝒯^2}{\mathrm{}^3}\eta _\alpha \mathrm{and}\tau _{\alpha \beta }=:𝔰_{\alpha \beta }{}_{}{}^{\gamma }\eta _{\gamma }^{}=\frac{𝒯}{\mathrm{}^2}\vartheta _{\alpha \beta }.$$
(41)
Inversion yields

$$𝔱_\alpha {}_{}{}^{\beta }=\frac{𝒯^2}{\mathrm{}^3}\delta _\alpha ^\beta ,𝔰_{\alpha \beta \gamma }=\frac{𝒯}{\mathrm{}^2}\eta _{\alpha \beta \gamma }.$$
(42)
We find a constant hydrostatic pressure $`𝒯^2/\mathrm{}^3`$ and a constant torque $`𝒯/\mathrm{}^2`$, exactly as foreseen by Cartan. In solid state physics, this corresponds to a superposition of three “forests” of screw dislocations that are parallel to the coordinate axes with constant and equal densities. However, in a real crystal, the Riemann–Cartan curvature $`R^{\alpha \beta }`$ has to vanish (instead of the Riemannian curvature $`\stackrel{~}{R}^{\alpha \beta }`$, as in our exact solution) and no pressure would emerge macroscopically.

Thus we can either view the spiral staircase as a vacuum solution and special case of our solution of Table 1 or as a material solution of 3D Einstein–Cartan theory (with Euclidean signature) carrying constant pressure and constant torque.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Yuri Obukhov (Moscow) for a critical reading of our paper and for many suggestions. Helpful remarks of Milutin Blagojević (Belgrade) are also greatly appreciated. One of the authors (fwh) is grateful to Jim Nester, Chiang-Mei Chen, Roh-Suan Tung, and Yu-Huei Wu (all of Chung-Li) for discussions on quasilocal energy. This Mexican/German work has been supported by the CONACYT Grants 42191–F, and 38495–E, by the CONACYT–DFG Grant E130–655, and by the DFG Grant 444 MEX–113/12/6-1.