Gauge-invariant gravitational waves in matter beyond linearized gravity

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Garg, Deepen, Dodin, I. Y.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2021
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author Garg, Deepen
Dodin, I. Y.
author_facet Garg, Deepen
Dodin, I. Y.
contents Modeling the propagation of gravitational waves (GWs) through matter is complicated by the gauge freedom of linearized gravity in that once nonlinearities are taken into consideration, gauge artifacts can cause spurious acceleration of the matter. To eliminate these artifacts, we propose how to keep the theory of dispersive GWs gauge-invariant beyond the linear approximation and, in particular, obtain an unambiguous gauge-invariant expression for the energy--momentum of a GW in dispersive medium. Using analytic tools from plasma physics, we propose an exactly gauge-invariant ``quasilinear'' theory, in which GWs are governed by linear equations and also affect the background metric on scales large compared to their wavelength. As a corollary, the gauge-invariant geometrical optics of linear dispersive GWs in a general background is formulated. As an example, we show how the well-known properties of vacuum GWs are naturally and concisely yielded by our theory in a manifestly gauge-invariant form. We also show how the gauge invariance can be maintained within a given accuracy to an arbitrary order in the GW amplitude. These results are intended to form a physically meaningful framework for studying dispersive GWs in matter.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2106_05062
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Gauge-invariant gravitational waves in matter beyond linearized gravity
Garg, Deepen
Dodin, I. Y.
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Modeling the propagation of gravitational waves (GWs) through matter is complicated by the gauge freedom of linearized gravity in that once nonlinearities are taken into consideration, gauge artifacts can cause spurious acceleration of the matter. To eliminate these artifacts, we propose how to keep the theory of dispersive GWs gauge-invariant beyond the linear approximation and, in particular, obtain an unambiguous gauge-invariant expression for the energy--momentum of a GW in dispersive medium. Using analytic tools from plasma physics, we propose an exactly gauge-invariant ``quasilinear'' theory, in which GWs are governed by linear equations and also affect the background metric on scales large compared to their wavelength. As a corollary, the gauge-invariant geometrical optics of linear dispersive GWs in a general background is formulated. As an example, we show how the well-known properties of vacuum GWs are naturally and concisely yielded by our theory in a manifestly gauge-invariant form. We also show how the gauge invariance can be maintained within a given accuracy to an arbitrary order in the GW amplitude. These results are intended to form a physically meaningful framework for studying dispersive GWs in matter.
title Gauge-invariant gravitational waves in matter beyond linearized gravity
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.05062