Related papers: Strings in plane-fronted gravitational waves
Appearance of cosmic strings in the early Universe is a common manifestation of new physics typically linked to some high energy scale. In this paper, we discuss a different situation, where a model underlying cosmic string formation is…
Pre--big bang models of inflation based on string cosmology produce a stochastic gravitational wave background whose spectrum grows with decreasing wavelength, and which may be detectable using interferometers such as LIGO. We point out…
The existence of scalar fields can be probed by observations of stochastic gravitational waves. Scalar fields mediate attractive forces, usually stronger than gravity, on the length scales shorter than their Compton wavelengths, which can…
The exact bosonic Neumann matrices of the cubic vertex in plane-wave light-cone string field theory are derived using the contour integration techniques developed in our earlier paper. This simplifies the original derivation of the vertex.…
We calculate the gravitational radiation emitted by an infinite cosmic string with two oppositely moving wave-trains, in the small amplitude approximation. After comparing our result to the previously studied cases we extend the results to…
Long-lived heavy particles present during the big bang could have a decay channel opened by gravitons. Such decays can produce gravitational waves with large enough abundance to be detectable, and a peculiar narrow spectrum peaked today…
The open-closed vertex in the maximally supersymmetric type IIB plane-wave light-cone string field theory is considered and an explicit solution for the bosonic part of the vertex is derived, valid for all values of the mass parameter, \mu.…
The definition of the Riemann-Cartan space of the plane wave type is given. The condition under which the torsion plane waves exist is found. It is expressed in the form of the restriction imposed on the coupling constants of the…
We examine here discontinuities in the metric, the antisymmetric tensor and the dilaton field which are allowed by conformal invariance. We find that the surfaces of discontinuity must necessarily be null surfaces and shock and impulsive…
It is shown that an infinite gravitational flux tube solution in 5D Kaluza-Klein gravity with the cross section in the Planck region after $5D \to 4D$ reduction and isometrical embedding in a Minkowski spacetime can be considered as a…
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…
First order perturbations for the fields with spin on the background metric of the gravitational shock waves are discussed. Applying the Newman -- Penrose formalism, exact solutions of the perturbation equations are obtained. For particle…
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…
The dynamics of a gravitational wave propagating through a cosmic gauge field are dramatically different than in vacuum. We show that a gravitational wave acquires an effective mass, is birefringent, and its normal modes are a linear…
Exact solutions are obtained in the quadratic theory of gravity with a scalar field for wave-like models of space-time with spatial homogeneity symmetry and allowing the integration of the equations of motion of test particles in the…
The presence of fields with negative mass-squared typically leads to some form of instability in standard field theories. The observation that, at least in the light-cone gauge, strings propagating in plane wave spacetimes can have…
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…
We calculate the interaction potential between widely separated D-branes in PP-wave backgrounds in string theory as well as in low-energy supergravity. Timelike and spacelike orientations are qualitatively different but in both cases the…
We consider space-times with two isometries which represent gravitational waves with distinct wavefronts which propagate into exact Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universes. The geometry of possible wavefronts is analysed in detail in all…
We consider a class of conformal models describing closed strings in axially symmetric stationary magnetic flux tube backgrounds. These models are closed string analogs of the Landau model of a particle in a magnetic field or the model of…