Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Floch, Bruno Le, LeFloch, Philippe G., Veneziano, Gabriele
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.09666
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Table of Contents:
  • We study the plane-symmetric collision of two gravitational waves and describe the global spacetime geometry generated by this collision. To this end, we formulate the characteristic initial value problem for the Einstein equations, when Goursat data describing the incoming waves are prescribed on two null hypersurfaces. We then construct a global solution representing a cyclic spacetime based on junction conditions associated with a prescribed singularity scattering map (a notion recently introduced by the authors). From a mathematical analysis standpoint, this amounts to a detailed analysis of the Goursat and Fuchsian initial value problems associated with singular hyperbolic equations, when junction conditions at interfaces are prescribed. In our construction, we introduce a partition into monotonicity diamonds (that is, suitable spacetime domains) and we construct the solution by concatenating domains across interfaces of timelike, null, or spacelike type.