Related papers: Sachs equations and plane waves II: Isometries and…
The isometries of an exact plane gravitational wave are symmetries for both massive and massless particles. Their conformal extensions are in fact chrono-projective transformations introduced earlier by Duval et al are symmetries for…
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…
Plane waves are a special class of Lorentzian spaces with a parallel null vector field. They are of great importance in Geometry (e.g. Lorentzian holonomy) and in Physics (General Relativity as well as alternative gravity theories). Our…
A special conformal transformation which carries a vacuum gravitational wave into another vacuum one is built by using M\"obius-redefined time. It can either transform a globally defined vacuum wave into a vacuum sandwich wave, or carry the…
A 1/2-BPS family of time dependent plane wave spacetimes which give rise to exactly solvable string backgrounds is presented. In particular a solution which interpolates between Minkowski spacetime and the maximally supersymmetric…
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…
By extending the notion of Lie derivative to distribution-valued tensor fields of order $m$, Lie derivatives with respect to $C^k$ vector fields, $k\geqslant m+1$, can be shown to be well defined. Geometric symmetries, definable in terms of…
We revisit the classification of Lorentz homogeneous spaces of dimension $3$, and relax usual completeness assumptions. In particular, non-unimodular elliptic plane waves, and only them, are neither locally symmetric nor locally isometric…
Conformal isometry algebras of plane wave geometry are studied. Then, based on the requirement of conformal invariance, a definition of masslessness is introduced and gauge invariant equations of motion, subsidiary conditions, and…
Treating the two-dimensional Minkowski space as a Wick rotated version of the complex plane, we characterize the causal automorphisms in two-dimensional Minkowski space as the M\"{a}rzke-Wheeler maps of a certain class of observers. We also…
Inspired by the all-important conformal invariance of harmonic maps on two-dimensional domains, this article studies the relationship between biharmonicity and conformality. We first give a characterization of biharmonic morphisms,…
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…
The conformal compactification is considered in a hierarchy of hypercomplex projective spaces with relevance in physics including Minkowski and Anti-de Sitter space. The geometries are expressed in terms of bicomplex Vahlen matrices and…
Integrable structures arise in general relativity when the spacetime possesses a pair of commuting Killing vectors admitting 2-spaces orthogonal to the group orbits. The physical interpretation of such spacetimes depends on the norm of the…
The paper focuses on the conformal Lorentz geometry of quasi-umbilical timelike surfaces in the $(1+2)$-Einstein universe, the conformal compactification of Minkowski 3-space realized as the space of oriented null lines through the origin…
In a recent paper, a new conformally flat metric was introduced, describing an expanding scalar field in a spherically symmetric geometry. The spacetime can be interpreted as a Schwarzschild-like model with an apparent horizon surrounding…
This article, the first in a series, analyzes the general theory of plane wave spacetimes. Following Dmitri Aleekseevsky, these are defined as spacetimes admitting a group of dilations leaving invariant a smooth curve. If this curve is…
New exact vacuum solutions with various singularities in the plane-symmetric spacetime are shown, and they are applied to the analysis of inhomogeneous cosmological models and colliding gravitational waves. One of the singularities can be…
We give a summary of recent results on the explicit local form of the second-order symmetric Lorentzian manifolds in arbitrary dimension, and its global version. These spacetimes turn out to be essentially a specific subclass of plane…
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…