Related papers: Sachs equations and plane waves, I: Rosen universe…
We describe the asymptotic boundary of the general homogeneous plane wave spacetime, using a construction of the `points at infinity' from the causal structure of the spacetime as introduced by Geroch, Kronheimer and Penrose. We show that…
In this thesis we consider several aspects of general relativity relating to exact solutions of the Einstein equations. In the first part gravitational plane waves in the Rosen form are investigated, and we develop a formalism for writing…
We give a covariant characterisation of the Penrose plane wave limit: the plane wave profile matrix $A(u)$ is the restriction of the null geodesic deviation matrix (curvature tensor) of the original spacetime metric to the null geodesic,…
This article describes the symmetries of plane wave spacetimes in dimension four and greater. It begins with a description of the isometric automorphisms, and in particular the homogeneous plane waves. Then the article turns to describing…
This article examines the structure of plane wave spacetimes (of signature $(1,n+1)$, $n\ge 2$) that are homogeneous (the isometry group is transitive) and geodesically complete -- which we call microcosms. In general, a plane wave is shown…
Utilizing the covariant formulation of Penrose's plane wave limit by Blau et~al., we construct for any semi-Riemannian metric $g$ a family of "plane wave limits." These limits are taken along any geodesic of $g$, yield simpler metrics of…
An earlier construction by the authors of sequences of globally regular, asymptotically flat initial data for the Einstein vacuum equations containing trapped surfaces for large values of the parameter is extended, from the time symmetric…
We study second order gravitational perturbations on plane wave spacetimes from both the metric and curvature perturbation points of view. For the former, we explicitly use the isometries of the background to introduce tensor oscillator…
We prove that the Penrose limit of a spacetime along a homogeneous geodesic is a homogeneous plane wave spacetime and that the Penrose limit of a reductive homogeneous spacetime along a homogeneous geodesic is a Cahen--Wallach space. We…
The Penrose limit is generalized to show that, any leading order solution of the low-energy field equations in any one of the five string theories has a plane wave solution as a limit. This limiting procedure takes into account all the…
We consider the problem of finding all space-time metrics for which all plane-wave Penrose limits are diagonalisable plane waves. This requirement leads to a conformally invariant differential condition on the Weyl spinor which we analyse…
A generalization of the limiting procedure of Penrose, which allows non-zero cosmological constants and takes into account metrics that contain homogeneous functions of degree zero, is presented. It is shown that any spacetime which admits…
We consider Einstein's equations coupled to the Euler equations in plane symmetry, with compact spatial slices and constant mean curvature time. We show that for a wide variety of equations of state and a large class of initial data,…
We conduct a review of the basic definitions and the principal results in the study of wavelike spacetimes, that is spacetimes whose metric models massless radiation moving at the speed of light, focusing in particular on those geometries…
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…
This article gives an invariant representation of the curvature of a plane wave spacetime in terms of the Schwarzian of a curve in the Lagrangian Grassmannian. It develops a general theory of cross ratios and Schwarzians of curves in what…
In an earlier paper, we showed that the causal boundary of any homogeneous plane wave satisfying the null convergence condition consists of a single null curve. In Einstein-Hilbert gravity, this would include any homogeneous plane wave…
We show that the conformal Penrose limit is an ordinary plane wave limit in a higher dimensional framework which resolves the spacetime singularity. The higher dimensional framework is provided by Ricci-flat manifolds which are of the form…
Impulsive gravitational waves in Minkowski space were introduced by Roger Penrose at the end of the 1960s, and have been widely studied over the decades. Here we focus on nonexpanding waves which later have been generalized to impulses…
This article studies wave equations and their solutions on plane wave spacetimes of arbitrary dimension, developing the interplay among three structural layers: the Ward progressing-wave representation of solutions to the scalar wave…