Chirality in gravitational and electromagnetic interactions with matter

Abstract

It has been suggested that single and double jets observed emanating from certain astrophysical objects may have a purely gravitational origin. We discuss new classes of pulsed gravitational wave solutions to the equation for perturbations of Ricci-flat spacetimes around Minkowski metrics, as models for the genesis of such phenomena. We discuss how these solutions are motivated by the analytic structure of spatially compact finite energy pulse solutions of the source-free Maxwell equations generated from complex chiral eigen-modes of a chirality operator. Complex gravitational pulse solutions to the linearized source-free Einstein equations are classified in terms of their chirality and generate a family of non-stationary real spacetime metrics. Particular members of these families are used as backgrounds in analyzing time-like solutions to the geodesic equation for test particles. They are found numerically to exhibit both single and double jet-like features with dimensionless aspect ratios suggesting that it may be profitable to include such backgrounds in simulations of astrophysical jet dynamics from rotating accretion discs involving electromagnetic fields.