Gravitational waves and dragging effects

TL;DR

This paper investigates how gravitational waves influence local inertial frames, revealing strong transversal effects and providing a general method to analyze weak rotating waves with angular momentum, including interactions with cosmic strings.

Contribution

Develops a general procedure for studying weak gravitational waves with translational symmetry that carry angular momentum, and analyzes their dragging effects on inertial frames.

Findings

Strong transversal dragging effects from cylindrical pulses

Explicit calculation of frame rotation due to rotating waves

Rotational dragging effects in strong cylindrical waves interacting with cosmic strings

Abstract

Linear and rotational dragging effects of gravitational waves on local inertial frames are studied in purely vacuum spacetimes. First the linear dragging caused by a simple cylindrical pulse is investigated. Surprisingly strong transversal effects of the pulse are exhibited. The angular momentum in cylindrically symmetric spacetimes is then defined and confronted with some results in literature. In the main part, the general procedure is developed for studying weak gravitational waves with translational but not axial symmetry which can carry angular momentum. After a suitable averaging the rotation of local inertial frames due to such rotating waves can be calculated explicitly and illustrated graphically. This is done in detail in the accompanying paper. Finally, the rotational dragging is given for strong cylindrical waves interacting with a rotating cosmic string with a small angular momentum.