Refraction of geodesics by impulsive spherical gravitational waves in constant-curvature spacetimes with a cosmological constant

Article

Refraction of geodesics by impulsive spherical gravitational waves in constant-curvature spacetimes with a cosmological constant

Podolský, J.; Švarc, R.

Phys. Rev. D 81(12), 124035 (2010)

Abstract

We investigate motion of test particles in exact spacetimes with an expanding impulsive gravitational wave which propagates in a Minkowski, a de Sitter, or an anti-de Sitter universe. Using the continuous form of these metrics we derive explicit junction conditions and simple refraction formulas for null, timelike, and spacelike geodesics crossing a general impulse of this type. In particular, we present a detailed geometrical description of the motion of test particles in a special class of axially symmetric spacetimes in which the impulse is generated by a snapped cosmic string.

Institute authors

Supported by

GACR 202/08/0187 — Exact solutions in higher dimensional and classical gravity
GACR 205/09/H033 — General relativity and its applications in astrophysics and cosmology
MSM0021620860 — Fyzikální studium objektů a procesů ve sluneční soustavě a v astro-fyzikálních systémech

BibTeX

@article{UTF389,
  author        = {Podolský, J. and Švarc, R.},
  title         = {{Refraction of geodesics by impulsive spherical gravitational waves in constant-curvature spacetimes with a cosmological constant}},
  journal       = {Phys. Rev. D},
  volume        = {81},
  number        = {12},
  pages         = {124035},
  year          = {2010},
  month         = {6},
  eprint        = {1005.4613v2},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
}