Gravitational Shock Waves and Their Scattering in Brane-Induced Gravity

TL;DR

This paper derives exact gravitational shock wave solutions in brane-induced gravity models, comparing them to 4D and 5D cases, and explores their implications for gravitational scattering and energy loss into the bulk.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed derivation of shock wave solutions in DGP braneworlds, generalizing 4D de Sitter solutions and analyzing their behavior at various scales.

Findings

Shock wave profiles match 4D Minkowski space at short distances.

Long-distance corrections involve odd powers of the distance.

Small impact parameter scattering closely follows 4D predictions.

Abstract

In this paper, following hep-th/0501028, we present a detailed derivation and discussion of the exact gravitational field solutions for a relativistic particle localized on a tensional brane in brane-induced gravity. Our derivation yields the metrics for both the normal branch and the self-inflating branch DGP braneworlds. They generalize the 4D gravitational shock waves in de Sitter space, and so we compare them to the corresponding 4D General Relativity solution and to the case when gravity resides only in the 5D bulk, and there are no brane-localized graviton kinetic terms. We write down the solutions in terms of two-variable hypergeometric functions and find that at short distances the shock wave profiles look exactly the same as in 4D Minkowski space, thus recovering the limit one expects if gravity is to be mediated by a metastable, but long-lived, bulk resonance. The corrections far from the source differ from the long distance corrections in 4D de Sitter space, coming in with odd powers of the distance. We discuss in detail the limiting case on the self-inflating branch when gravity is modified exactly at de Sitter radius, and energy can be lost into the bulk by resonance-like processes. Finally, we consider Planckian scattering on the brane, and find that for a sufficiently small impact parameter it is approximated very closely by the usual 4D description.