Gravitational Waves: Just Plane Symmetry
نویسندگان
چکیده
We present some remarkable properties of the symmetry group for gravitational plane waves. Our main observation is that metrics with plane wave symmetry satisfy every system of generally covariant vacuum field equations except the Einstein equations. The proof uses the homothety admitted by metrics with plane wave symmetry and the scaling behavior of generally covariant field equations. We also discuss a mini-superspace description of spacetimes with plane wave symmetry. July 15, 1999 PACS number(s): 04.30.-w, 04.50.+h, 04.20.Fy * Permanent address.
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