Friday, October 12, 2012

1210.3261 (Robert Svarc et al.)

Geodesic deviation in Kundt spacetimes of any dimension    [PDF]

Robert Svarc, Jiri Podolsky
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.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.3261

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