Local existence of symmetric spinor potentials for symmetric (3,1)-spinors in Einstein space–times

We investigate the possibility of existence of a symmetric potential H_ABA′B′=H_{(AB)(A′B′)} for a symmetric (3,1)-spinor L_ABCA′, e.g., a Lanczos potential of the Weyl spinor, as defined by the equation L_ABCA′=_(A^B′H_BC)A′B′. We prove that in all Einstein space–times such a symmetric potential H_ABA′B′ exists. Potentials of this type have been found earlier in investigations of some very special spinors in restricted classes of space–times. A tensor version of this result is also given. We apply similar ideas and results by Illge to Maxwell’s equations in a curved space–time.