Related papers: Exact Parallel Waves in General Relativity
We consider restrictions placed by geodesic completeness on spacetimes possessing a null parallel vector field, the so-called Brinkmann spacetimes. This class of spacetimes includes important idealized gravitational wave models in General…
Ehlers-Kundt conjecture is a physical assertion about the fundamental role of plane waves for the description of gravitational waves. Mathematically, it becomes equivalent to a problem on the Euclidean plane ${\mathbb R}^2$ with a very…
In this paper we deal with quadratic metric-affine gravity, which we briefly introduce, explain and give historical and physical reasons for using this particular theory of gravity. Further, we introduce a generalisation of well known…
Exact plane gravitational radiation fields are presented within the framework of general relativity and their properties are described. The physics of nonlinear elliptically polarized plane gravitational waves is developed in close analogy…
We consider generalised pp-waves with purely axial torsion, which we previously showed to be new vacuum solutions of quadratic metric-affine gravity. Our analysis shows that classical pp-waves of parallel Ricci curvature should not be…
We investigate the vacuum pp-wave and Aichelburg-Sexl-type solutions in f(R) and the modified Gauss-Bonnet theories of gravity with both minimal and nonminimal couplings between matter and geometry. In each case, we obtain the necessary…
In 1962, Ehlers and Kundt conjectured that plane waves are the only class of complete Ricci-flat~\emph{pp}-waves, i.e.\ metrics on ${\mathbb R}^4$ of the form \[ ds^2=2du\,dv+dx^2+dy^2+H(x,y,u)du^2\,. \] Recently, Flores and S\'{a}nchez…
We study the gravitational waves in spacetimes of arbitrary dimension. They generalize the pp-waves and the Kundt waves, obtained earlier in four dimensions. Explicit solutions of the Einstein and Einstein-Maxwell equations are derived for…
Plane waves and pp-waves are well-known universal metrics that solve all metric-based gravitational field equations. Similarly, the Kerr-Schild-Kundt class of metrics is almost universal: all metric-based gravitational field equations…
We discuss dynamical aspects of gravitational plane waves in Einstein theory with massless scalar fields. The general analytic solution describes colliding gravitational waves with constant polarization, which interact with scalar waves…
Gravitational waves with parallel rays are known to have remarkable properties: Their orbit space of null rays possesses the structure of a non-relativistic spacetime of codimension-one. Their geodesics are in one-to-one correspondence with…
The main objective of the present paper is to investigate the curvature properties of generalized pp-wave metric. It is shown that generalized pp-wave spacetime is Ricci generalized pseudosymmetric, 2-quasi-Einstein and generalized…
We investigate a class of gravitational pp-waves which represent the exterior vacuum field of spinning particles moving with the speed of light. Such exact spacetimes are described by the original Brinkmann form of the pp-wave metric…
These notes provide a student-friendly introduction to the theory of gravitational waves in full, non-linear general relativity (GR). We aim for a balance between physical intuition and mathematical rigor and cover topics such as the…
Some classes of the so called "travelling wave" solutions of Einstein and Einstein - Maxwell equations in General Relativity and of dynamical equations for massless bosonic fields in string gravity in four and higher dimensions are…
Gyratonic plane fronted gravitational waves are exact solutions of Einstein's field equations, which correspond to gravitational waves that carry momentum and angular-momentum. Using the definitions of the Hamiltonian formulation of the…
Impulsive pp-waves are commonly described either by a distributional spacetime metric or, alternatively, by a continuous one. The transformation $T$ relating these forms clearly has to be discontinuous, which causes two basic problems:…
Gyratonic pp-waves are exact solutions of Einstein's equations that represent non-linear gravitational waves endowed with angular momentum. We consider gyratonic pp-waves that travel in the $z$ direction and whose time dependence on the…
We discuss the causal structure of pp-wave spacetimes using the ideal point construction outlined by Geroch, Kronheimer, and Penrose. This generalizes the recent work of Marolf and Ross, who considered similar issues for plane wave…
The integrals of the motion associated with conformal Killing vectors of a curved space-time with an additional electromagnetic background are studied for massive particles. They involve a new term which might be non-local. The difficulty…