The energy-momentum tensor for a dissipative fluid in general relativity

Considering the growing interest of the astrophysicist community in the study of dissipative fluids with the aim of getting a more realistic description of the universe, we present in this paper a physical analysis of the energy-momentum tensor of a viscous fluid with heat flux. We introduce the general form of this tensor and, using the approximation of small velocity gradients, we relate the stresses of the fluid with the viscosity coefficients, the shear tensor and the expansion factor. Exploiting these relations, we can write the stresses in terms of the extrinsic curvature of the normal surface to the 4-velocity vector of the fluid, and we can also establish a connection between the perfect fluid and the symmetries of the spacetime. On the other hand, we calculate the energy conditions for a dissipative fluid through contractions of the energy-momentum tensor with the 4-velocity vector of an arbitrary observer. This method is interesting because it allows us to compute the conditions in a reasonably easy way and without considering any approximation or restriction on the energy-momentum tensor.