Gravitational wave memory and the wave equation

Abstract

Gravitational wave memory and its electromagnetic analog are shown to be straightforward consequences of the wave equation. From Maxwell's equations one can derive a wave equation for the electric field, while from the Bianchi identity one can derive a wave equation for the Riemann tensor in linearized gravity. Memory in both cases is derived from the structure of the source of those wave equations.

arXiv commentfigure and references added. Discussion expanded and clarified

References in corpus (6)

• The basics of gravitational wave theory
• An electromagnetic analog of gravitational wave memory
• A perturbative and gauge invariant treatment of gravitational wave memory
• The Memory Effect for Plane Gravitational Waves
• On the ambiguity in the notion of transverse traceless modes of gravitational waves
• On a basic conceptual confusion in gravitational radiation theory

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Gravitational wave memory and its tail in cosmology
• Implications of the quantum nature of the black hole horizon on the gravitational-wave ringdown