New Insights into the Nature of Nonlinear Gravitational Waves

TL;DR

This paper develops a consistent second-order nonlinear theory of gravitational waves, revealing that solutions are inherently non-plane waves with mixed longitudinal and transverse components.

Contribution

It introduces a fully consistent second-order nonlinear framework for gravitational waves, addressing previous inconsistencies and uncovering new solution characteristics.

Findings

Non-trivial solutions are non-plane waves with non-zero trace.

Solutions include both longitudinal and transverse components.

The method ensures gauge consistency and tensor expansion accuracy.

Abstract

We study the evolution equations for gravitational waves, which are derived using the full metric to raise and lower indices. This method ensures full consistency between the Ricci tensor and all gauge restrictions and requirements, and allows a meaningful expansion of all tensors up to second order, avoiding several inconsistencies and contradictions observed in previous work. Taking the harmonic gauge to second order in the perturbation theory results in a new nonlinear equation. We show that non-trivial solutions to this equation are necessarily non-plane wave modes with a non-zero trace. These solutions must contain both longitudinal and transverse components, as both are permitted by the gauge restrictions.