Brinkmann coordinates

Abstract: We give a classification of non-Abelian T-duals of the flat metric in D=4 dimensions with respect to the four-dimensional continuous subgroups of the Poincare group. After dualizing the flat background, we identify majority of dual models as conformal sigma models in plane-parallel wave backgrounds, most of them having torsion. We give their form in Brinkmann coordinates. We find, besides the plane-parallel waves, several diagonalizable curved metrics with nontrivial scalar curvature and torsion. Using the non-Abelian T-duality, we find general solution of the classical field equations for all the sigma models in terms of d'Alembert solutions of the wave equation.

Abstract: The geometry of twisted null geodesic congruences in gravitational plane wave spacetimes is explored, with special focus on homogeneous plane waves. The role of twist in the relation of the Rosen coordinates adapted to a null congruence with the fundamental Brinkmann coordinates is explained and a generalised form of the Rosen metric describing a gravitational plane wave is derived. The Killing vectors and isometry algebra of homogeneous plane waves (HPWs) are described in both Brinkmann and twisted Rosen form and used to demonstrate the coset space structure of HPWs. The van Vleck-Morette determinant for twisted congruences is evaluated in both Brinkmann and Rosen descriptions. The twisted null congruences of the Ozsvath-Schucking,`anti-Mach' plane wave are investigated in detail. These developments provide the necessary geometric toolkit for future investigations of the role of twist in loop effects in quantum field theory in curved spacetime, where gravitational plane waves arise generically as Penrose limits; in string theory, where they are important as string backgrounds; and potentially in the detection of gravitational waves in astronomy.

Abstract: The geometry of twisted null geodesic congruences in gravitational plane wave spacetimes is explored, with special focus on homogeneous plane waves. The role of twist in the relation of the Rosen coordinates adapted to a null congruence with the fundamental Brinkmann coordinates is explained and a generalised form of the Rosen metric describing a gravitational plane wave is derived. The Killing vectors and isometry algebra of homogeneous plane waves (HPWs) are described in both Brinkmann and twisted Rosen form and used to demonstrate the coset space structure of HPWs. The van Vleck-Morette determinant for twisted congruences is evaluated in both Brinkmann and Rosen descriptions. The twisted null congruences of the Ozsvath-Schucking, ‘anti-Mach’ plane wave are investigated in detail. These developments provide the necessary geometric toolkit for future investigations of the role of twist in loop effects in quantum field theory in curved spacetime, where gravitational plane waves arise generically as Penrose limits; in string theory, where they are important as string backgrounds; and potentially in the detection of gravitational waves in astronomy.

Abstract: I explain how the Lewis-Riesenfeld exact treatment of the time- dependent quantum harmonic oscillator can be understood in terms of the geodesics and isometries of a plane wave metric, and I show how a curious equivalence between two classes of Yang-Mills actions can be traced back to the transformation relating plane waves in Rosen and Brinkmann coordinates.