On Generating Gravity Waves with Matter and Electromagnetic Waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates conditions under which matter and electromagnetic waves generate backscattered gravitational waves upon collision, showing that electromagnetic shock waves alone do not produce such waves, but matter coupled with electromagnetic shocks does.

Contribution

It provides explicit calculations demonstrating the emergence of backscattered gravitational waves when matter is combined with electromagnetic shock waves, unlike pure electromagnetic shocks.

Findings

Pure electromagnetic shock waves do not produce backscattered gravitational waves.

Matter coupled with electromagnetic shock waves results in backscattered gravitational waves.

Explicit calculations confirm the conditions for gravitational wave generation.

Abstract

If a homogeneous plane light-like shell collides head-on with a homogeneous plane electromagnetic shock wave having a step-function profile then no backscattered gravitational waves are produced. We demonstrate, by explicit calculation, that if the matter is accompanied by a homogeneous plane electromagnetic shock wave with a step-function profile then backscattered gravitational waves appear after the collision.