Reflection of electromagnetic waves from mixtures of plane gravitational and scalar waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electromagnetic waves reflect off mixtures of gravitational and scalar waves, providing exact solutions and revealing observable effects like sign flips in Maxwell spinors that could aid gravitational wave detection.

Contribution

It presents exact solutions for electromagnetic wave reflection from mixed gravitational and scalar waves, including multiple reflections and observable spinor sign flips.

Findings

Electromagnetic waves reflect from gravitational waves regardless of scalar fields.

Exact solutions for multiple reflections from impulsive gravitational waves are derived.

Sign flips in Maxwell spinors occur due to gravitational wave interactions, potentially aiding detection.

Abstract

We consider colliding wave packets consisting of hybrid mixtures of electromagnetic, gravitational and scalar waves. Irrespective of the scalar field, the electromagnetic wave still reflects from the gravitational wave. Some reflection processes are given for different choice of packets in which the Coulomb-like component $\Psi_2$ vanishes. Exact solution for multiple reflection of an electromagnetic wave from successive impulsive gravitational waves is obtained in a closed form. It is shown that a succesive sign flip in the Maxwell spinor arises as a result of encountering with an impulsive train (i.e. the Dirac's comb curvature) of gravitational waves. Such an observable effect may be helpful in the detection of gravitational wave bursts.