2016/03/31 by Wojciech Kulczycki, Edward Malec · 23 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Gravitation #Gravitational energy #Gravitational field #Gravitational redshift #Gravitational wave #Polar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #Speed of gravity #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1361-6382/aa7361
published in Classical and Quantum Gravity 34(13), 135014 (IOP Publishing) · misprints corrected, matches version published in Classical and Quantum Gravity
openalex publication_date 2017/05/16 · openalex created_date 2017/05/19 · arxiv created 2017/06/23 · arxiv updated 2017/06/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract We analyze propagation equations for the polar modes of gravitational waves in cosmological space-times. We prove that polar gravitational waves must perturb the density and non-azimuthal components of the velocity of material medium of the Friedman–Lemaitre–Robertson–Walker spacetimes. Axial gravitational waves can influence only the azimuthal velocity, leading to local cosmological rotation. The whole gravitational dynamics reduces to the single ‘master equation’ that has the same form for polar and axial modes. That allows us to conclude that the status of the Huygens principle is the same for axial and polar gravitational waves. In particular, this principle is valid exactly in radiation spacetimes with the vanishing cosmological constant, and it is broken otherwise.