Using the invariant form of the equation of geodesic deviation, which describes relative motion of free test particles, we investigate a general family of D-dimensional Kundt spacetimes. We demonstrate that local influence of the gravitational field can be naturally decomposed into Newton-type tidal effects typical for type II spacetimes, longitudinal deformations mainly present in spacetimes of algebraic type III, and type N purely transverse effects corresponding to gravitational waves with 1/2. D(D − 3) independent polarization states. We explicitly study themost important examples, namely exact pp-waves, gyratons, and VSI spacetimes. This analysis helps us to clarify the geometrical and physical interpretation of the Kundt class of nonexpanding, nontwisting and shearfree geometries.
CITATION STYLE
Švarc, R., & Podolský, J. (2014). Geodesic deviation in Kundt spacetimes of any dimension. In Springer Proceedings in Physics (Vol. 157, pp. 229–237). Springer Science and Business Media, LLC. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06761-2_29
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