Geodesic deviation in Kundt spacetimes of any dimension
arXiv:1210.3261 · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-06761-2_29
Abstract
Using the invariant form of the equation of geodesic deviation, which describes relative motion of free test particles, we investigate a general family of D-dimensional Kundt spacetimes. We demonstrate that local influence of the gravitational field can be naturally decomposed into Newton-type tidal effects typical for type II spacetimes, longitudinal deformations mainly present in spacetimes of algebraic type III, and type N purely transverse effects corresponding to gravitational waves with D(D-3)/2 independent polarization states. We explicitly study the most important examples, namely exact pp-waves, gyratons, and VSI spacetimes. This analysis helps us to clarify the geometrical and physical interpretation of the Kundt class of nonexpanding, nontwisting and shearfree geometries.
8 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the conference "Relativity and Gravitation, 100 Years after Einstein in Prague", Prague, June 25-29, 2012
References in corpus (7)
- Kundt Spacetimes
- Higher dimensional VSI spacetimes
- General Kundt spacetimes in higher dimensions
- Interpreting spacetimes of any dimension using geodesic deviation
- Explicit algebraic classification of Kundt geometries in any dimension
- Asymptotic structure of radiation in higher dimensions
- Physical interpretation of Kundt spacetimes using geodesic deviation