The Weyl Double Copy for Gravitational Waves


Abstract in English

We establish the status of the Weyl double copy relation for radiative solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations. We show that all type N vacuum solutions, which describe the radiation region of isolated gravitational systems with appropriate fall-off for the matter fields, admit a degenerate Maxwell field that squares to give the Weyl tensor. The converse statement also holds, i.e. if there exists a degenerate Maxwell field on a curved background, then the background is type N. This relation defines a scalar that satisfies the wave equation on the background. We show that for non-twisting radiative solutions, the Maxwell field and the scalar also satisfy the Maxwell equation and the wave equation on Minkowski spacetime. Hence, non-twisting solutions have a straightforward double copy interpretation.

Download