Freely falling bodies in a standing-wave spacetime

TL;DR

This paper investigates how standing gravitational waves in a specific cosmological model influence free particles, revealing attraction at antinodes and demonstrating the velocity memory effect.

Contribution

It provides the first analysis of free mass motion in standing-wave spacetimes within polarized Gowdy cosmology, highlighting particle attraction and velocity memory.

Findings

Antinodes attract freely falling particles.

Velocity memory effect is demonstrated.

Insights into particle dynamics in standing gravitational waves.

Abstract

We study the motion of free masses subject to the influence of standing gravitational waves in the polarized Gowdy cosmology with a three-torus topology. We show that antinodes attract freely falling particles and we trace the velocity memory effect.