Nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves.

Article

Nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves.

Podolský, J.

Class. Quantum Grav. 15(0), 3229-3239 (1998)

Abstract

We investigate a class of impulsive gravitational waves which propagate either in Minkowski or in the (anti-)de Sitter background. These waves are constructed as impulsive members of the Kundt class $P(\Lambda)$ of non-twisting, non-expanding type N solutions of vacuum Einstein equations with a cosmological constant $\Lambda$. We show that the only non-trivial waves of this type in Minkowski spacetime are impulsive pp-waves. For $\Lambda\not=0$ we demonstrate that the canonical subclasses of $P(\Lambda)$, which are invariantly different for smooth profiles, are all locally equivalent for impulsive profiles. Also, we present coordinate system for these impulsive solutions which is explicitly continuous.

Keywords

GRG

Institute authors

Podolský, Jiří

Supported by

GACR 202/96/0206 — Relativistic physics and astrophysics
GAUK 230/1996 — Relativistická teorie gravitace, astrofyzika a kosmologie

BibTeX

@article{UTF144,
  author        = {Podolský, J.},
  title         = {{Nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves.}},
  journal       = {Class. Quantum Grav.},
  volume        = {15},
  number        = {0},
  pages         = {3229-3239},
  year          = {1998},
  doi           = {10.1088/0264-9381/15/10/023},
  eprint        = {gr-qc/9807081},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url           = {http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0264-9381/15/10/023/q81020.pdf},
}