Exploring axial symmetry in modified teleparallel gravity

Axially symmetric spacetimes play an important role in the relativistic description of rotating astrophysical objects like black holes, stars, etc. In gravitational theories that venture beyond the usual Riemannian geometry by allowing independent connection components, the notion of symmetry concerns, not just the metric, but also the connection. As discovered recently, in teleparallel geometries, axial symmetry can be realized in two branches, while only one of these has a continuous spherically symmetric limit. In the current paper, we consider a very generic f(T, B, ϕ, X) family of teleparallel gravities, whose action depends on the torsion scalar T and the boundary term B, as well as a scalar field ϕ with its kinetic term X. As the field equations can be decomposed into symmetric and antisymmetric (spin connection) parts, we thoroughly analyze the antisymmetric equations and look for solutions of axial spacetimes which could be used as ansätze to tackle the symmetric part of the field equations. In particular, we find solutions corresponding to a generalization of the Taub-NUT metric, and the slowly rotating Kerr spacetime. Since this work also concerns a wider issue of how to determine the spin connection in teleparallel gravity, we also show that the method of "turning off gravity" proposed in the literature, does not always produce a solution to the antisymmetric equations.