Aichelburg-Sexl boost of an isolated source in general relativity

A study of the Aichelburg--Sexl boost of the Schwarzschild field is described in which the emphasis is placed on the field (curvature tensor) with the metric playing a secondary role. This is motivated by a description of the Coulomb field of a charged particle viewed by an observer whose speed relative to the charge approaches the speed of light. Our approach is exemplified by carrying out an Aichelburg-- Sexl type boost on the Weyl vacuum gravitational field due to an isolated axially symmetric source. Detailed calculations of the boosts transverse and parallel to the symmetry axis are given and the results, which differ significantly, are discussed.Comment: 25 pages, LateX2

Potential Conservation Laws

We prove that potential conservation laws have characteristics depending only on local variables if and only if they are induced by local conservation laws. Therefore, characteristics of pure potential conservation laws have to essentially depend on potential variables. This statement provides a significant generalization of results of the recent paper by Bluman, Cheviakov and Ivanova [J. Math. Phys., 2006, V.47, 113505]. Moreover, we present extensions to gauged potential systems, Abelian and general coverings and general foliated systems of differential equations. An example illustrating possible applications of proved statements is considered. A special version of the Hadamard lemma for fiber bundles and the notions of weighted jet spaces are proposed as new tools for the investigation of potential conservation laws.Comment: 36 pages, extended versio

Geodesic deviation in pp-wave spacetimes of quadratic curvature gravity

We write the equation of geodesic deviations in the spacetime of $pp$-waves in terms of the Newman-Penrose scalars and apply it to study gravitational waves in quadratic curvature gravity. We show that quadratic curvature gravity $pp$-waves can have a transverse helicity-0 polarization mode and two transverse helicity-2 general relativity-like wave polarizations. A concrete example is given in which we analyze the wave polarizations of an exact impulsive gravitational wave solution to quadratic curvature gravity.Comment: 16 pages, no figures, accepted in Physical Review

PP-waves, Israel's Matching conditions, Brane-world scenarios and BPS states in gravity

The matching between two 4-dimensional PP-waves is discussed by using Israel's matching conditions. Physical consequences on the dynamics of (cosmic) strings are analyzed. The extension to space-time of arbitrary dimension is discussed and some interesting features related to the brane world scenario, BPS states in gravity and Dirac-like quantization conditions are briefly described.Comment: 16 pages, no figures. Accepted for pubblication on Classical and Quantum Gravit

On the Geroch-Traschen class of metrics

We compare two approaches to semi-Riemannian metrics of low regularity. The maximally 'reasonable' distributional setting of Geroch and Traschen is shown to be consistently contained in the more general setting of nonlinear distributional geometry in the sense of Colombea

Symmetries and geodesics in (anti-)de Sitter spacetimes with nonexpanding impulsive waves

We consider a class of exact solutions which represent nonexpanding impulsive waves in backgrounds with nonzero cosmological constant. Using a convenient 5-dimensional formalism it is shown that these spacetimes admit at least three global Killing vector fields. The same geometrical approach enables us to find all geodesics in a simple explicit form and describe the effect of impulsive waves on test particles. Timelike geodesics in the axially-symmetric Hotta-Tanaka spacetime are studied in detail. It is also demonstrated that for vanishing cosmological constant, the symmetries and geodesics reduce to those for well-known impulsive pp-waves.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX 2e. To appear in Class. Quantum Gra

Nonisospectral integrable nonlinear equations with external potentials and their GBDT solutions

Auxiliary systems for matrix nonisospectral equations, including coupled NLS with external potential and KdV with variable coefficients, were introduced. Explicit solutions of nonisospectral equations were constructed using the GBDT version of the B\"acklund-Darboux transformation

Motions and world-line deviations in Einstein-Maxwell theory

We examine the motion of charged particles in gravitational and electro-magnetic background fields. We study in particular the deviation of world lines, describing the relative acceleration between particles on different space-time trajectories. Two special cases of background fields are considered in detail: (a) pp-waves, a combination of gravitational and electro-magnetic polarized plane waves travelling in the same direction; (b) the Reissner-Nordstr{\o}m solution. We perform a non-trivial check by computing the precession of the periastron for a charged particle in the Reissner-Nordstr{\o}m geometry both directly by solving the geodesic equation, and using the world-line deviation equation. The results agree to the order of approximation considered.Comment: 23 pages, no figure

Local conservation laws of second-order evolution equations

Generalizing results by Bryant and Griffiths [Duke Math. J., 1995, V.78, 531-676], we completely describe local conservation laws of second-order (1+1)-dimensional evolution equations up to contact equivalence. The possible dimensions of spaces of conservation laws prove to be 0, 1, 2 and infinity. The canonical forms of equations with respect to contact equivalence are found for all nonzero dimensions of spaces of conservation laws.Comment: 11 pages, minor correction