English

Geodesics in nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves with $\Lambda$, II

Mathematical Physics 2017-12-18 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology math.MP

Abstract

We investigate all geodesics in the entire class of nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves propagating in an (anti-)de Sitter universe using the distributional metric. We extend the regularization approach of part I, [SSLP16] to a full nonlinear distributional analysis within the geometric theory of generalized functions. We prove global existence and uniqueness of geodesics that cross the impulsive wave and hence geodesic completeness in full generality for this class of low regularity spacetimes. This, in particular, prepares the ground for a mathematically rigorous account on the 'physical equivalence' of the continuous with the distributional `from' of the metric.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1704.05383,
  title  = {Geodesics in nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves with $\Lambda$, II},
  author = {Clemens Sämann and Roland Steinbauer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.05383},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

21 pages, 1 figure; v2: close to final version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:20:14.568Z