Weyl Double Copy for Gravitational Waves

We establish the status of the Weyl double copy relation for radiative solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations. We show that all type N vacuum solutions, which describe the radiation region of isolated gravitational systems with appropriate falloff for the matter fields, admit a degenerate Maxwel...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2021-03, Vol.126 (10), p.101103, Article 101103
Main Authors: Godazgar, Hadi, Godazgar, Mahdi, Monteiro, Ricardo, Veiga, David Peinador, Pope, C N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Einstein equations
Fluids & classical fields in curved spacetime
General relativity formalism
Gravitational wave detection
Gravitational waves
Maxwell's equations
Minkowski space
PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
Tensors
Wave equations
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We establish the status of the Weyl double copy relation for radiative solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations. We show that all type N vacuum solutions, which describe the radiation region of isolated gravitational systems with appropriate falloff for the matter fields, admit a degenerate Maxwell field that squares to give the Weyl tensor. The converse statement also holds, i.e., if there exists a degenerate Maxwell field on a curved background, then the background is type N. This relation defines a scalar that satisfies the wave equation on the background. We show that for nontwisting radiative solutions, the Maxwell field and the scalar also satisfy the Maxwell equation and the wave equation on Minkowski spacetime. Hence, nontwisting solutions have a straightforward double copy interpretation.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.101103