Collision of Shock Waves in Einstein-Maxwell Theory with a Cosmological Constant: A Special Solution

Abstract

Post-collision space-times of the Cartesian product form M'xM'', where M' and M'' are two-dimensional manifolds, are known with M' and M'' having constant curvatures of equal and opposite sign (for the collision of electromagnetic shock waves) or of the same sign (for the collision of gravitational shock waves). We construct here a new explicit post-collision solution of the Einstein-Maxwell vacuum field equations with a cosmological constant for which M' has constant (nonzero) curvature and M'' has zero curvature.