Gravitational waves in metric-affine gravity theory

TL;DR

This paper derives exact gravitational wave solutions within a broad class of quadratic metric-affine gravity models, incorporating torsion, nonmetricity, and curvature, expanding understanding of wave behavior in alternative gravity theories.

Contribution

It provides the first explicit solutions for gravitational waves in a general quadratic metric-affine gauge gravity framework, including all invariants from torsion, nonmetricity, and curvature.

Findings

Exact wave solutions derived for quadratic metric-affine models

Wave properties analogous to electromagnetic plane waves

Framework for analyzing gravitational waves in extended gravity theories

Abstract

We derive the exact gravitational wave solutions in a general class of quadratic metric-affine gauge gravity models. The Lagrangian includes all possible linear and quadratic invariants constructed from the torsion, nonmetricity and the curvature. The ansatz for the gravitational wave configuration and the properties of the wave solutions are patterned following the corresponding ansatz and the properties of the plane-fronted electromagnetic wave.