Collision of High Frequency Plane Gravitational and Electromagnetic Waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates the head-on collision of high-frequency plane gravitational and electromagnetic waves within Einstein-Maxwell theory, deriving post-collision spacetime solutions using geometrical optics approximation.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of wave collisions, including polarized and non-linearly polarized cases, extending previous studies in gravitational-electromagnetic wave interactions.

Findings

Derived post-collision spacetime metrics in Einstein-Maxwell theory.

Analyzed collisions for all polarization configurations.

Generalized results to non-linear polarization cases.

Abstract

We study the head-on collision of linearly polarized, high frequency plane gravitational waves and their electromagnetic counterparts in the Einstein-Maxwell theory. The post-collision space-times are obtained by solving the vacuum Einstein-Maxwell field equations in the geometrical optics approximation. The head-on collisions of all possible pairs of these systems of waves is described and the results are then generalised to non-linearly polarized waves which exhibit the maximum two degrees of freedom of polarization.