Exact impulsive gravitational waves in spacetimes of constant curvature

Abstract

Exact solutions exist which describe impulsive gravitational waves propagating in Minkowski, de Sitter, or anti-de Sitter universes. These may be either nonexpanding or expanding. Both cases in each background are reviewed here from a unified point of view. All the main methods for their construction are described systematically: the Penrose "cut and paste" method, explicit construction of continuous coordinates, distributional limits of sandwich waves, embedding from higher dimensions, and boosts of sources or limits of infinite accelerations. Attention is concentrated on the most interesting specific solutions. In particular, the nonexpanding impulsive waves that are generated by null multipole particles are described. These generalize the well-known Aichelburg-Sexl and Hotta-Tanaka monopole solutions. Also described are the expanding spherical impulses that are generated by snapping and colliding strings. Geodesics and some other properties of impulsive wave spacetimes are also summarized.

33 pages, LaTeX 2e, in Gravitation: Following the Prague Inspiration (To celebrate the 60th birthday of Jiri Bicak), O.Semerak, J.Podolsky, M.Zofka (eds.), World Scientific, Singapore, to appear in 2002, pp 205-246

References in corpus (9)

• Boost-rotation symmetric spacetimes - review
• Uniformly accelerating black holes in a de Sitter universe
• Nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves with an arbitrary cosmological constant
• Accelerated sources in de Sitter spacetime and the insufficiency of retarded fields
• Symmetries and geodesics in (anti-)de Sitter spacetimes with nonexpanding impulsive waves
• Null limits of the C-metric
• The collision and snapping of cosmic strings generating spherical impulsive gravitational waves
• Exact radiative spacetimes: some recent developments
• Null limits of generalised Bonnor-Swaminarayan solutions

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Superrotations and Black Hole Pair Creation
• Critical Formation of Trapped Surfaces in the Collision of Non-expanding Gravitational Shock Waves in de Sitter Space-Time
• Gyratonic pp-waves and their impulsive limit
• Impulsive waves in ghost free infinite derivative gravity in anti-de Sitter spacetime
• Holographic estimation of multiplicity and membranes collision in modified spaces ${AdS}_5$
• Memory Effect and BMS-like Symmetries for Impulsive Gravitational Waves
• The global uniqueness and $C^1$-regularity of geodesics in expanding impulsive gravitational waves
• The global existence, uniqueness and C^1-regularity of geodesics in nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves
• The regularity of geodesics in impulsive pp-waves
• Geodesics in nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves with $\Lambda$, Part I
• Cut-and-paste for impulsive gravitational waves with $\Lambda$: The geometric picture
• Soldering freedom and BMS-like transformations
• Penrose junction conditions with $\Lambda$: Geometric insights into low-regularity metrics for impulsive gravitational waves
• The memory effect in impulsive plane waves: comments, corrections, clarifications
• Ultrarelativistic boost of spinning and charged black rings
• Harrison's interpretation of the cosmological redshift revisited
• Species, chameleonic strings and the concept of particle
• Geodesics in nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves with $\Lambda$, II
• Cut-and-paste for impulsive gravitational waves with $\Lambda$: The mathematical analysis
• General Shells and Generalized Functions