TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rätzel, Dennis
A1  - Wilkens, Martin
A1  - Menzel, Ralf
T1  - Gravitational properties of light
T2  - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics
N2  - The gravitational field of a laser pulse of finite lifetime, is investigated in the framework of linearized gravity. Although the effects are very small, they may be of fundamental physical interest. It is shown that the gravitational field of a linearly polarized light pulse is modulated as the norm of the corresponding electric field strength, while no modulations arise for circular polarization. In general, the gravitational field is independent of the polarization direction. It is shown that all physical effects are confined to spherical shells expanding with the speed of light, and that these shells are imprints of the spacetime events representing emission and absorption of the pulse. Nearby test particles at rest are attracted towards the pulse trajectory by the gravitational field due to the emission of the pulse, and they are repelled from the pulse trajectory by the gravitational field due to its absorption. Examples are given for the size of the attractive effect. It is recovered that massless test particles do not experience any physical effect if they are co-propagating with the pulse, and that the acceleration of massless test particles counter-propagating with respect to the pulse is four times stronger than for massive particles
at rest. The similarities between the gravitational effect of a laser pulse and Newtonian gravity in two dimensions are pointed out. The spacetime curvature close to the pulse is compared to that induced by gravitational waves from astronomical sources.
KW  - gravity
KW  - general relativity
KW  - laser pulses
KW  - electromagnetic radiation
KW  - linearized gravity
KW  - pp-wave solutions
Y1  - 2016
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/9054
SN  - 1367-2630
VL  - 18
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - IOP Science
CY  - London
ER  -