Conformally flat travelling plane wave solutions of Einstein equations

Abstract

We discuss conformally flat plane wave solutions of Einstein equations depending on the plane wave phase $\xi=\omega\tau-{\bf qx}$, where $\tau$ is the conformal time. We show that ideal fluid Einstein equations and scalar fields with exponential self-interaction have solutions of this form. We consider in more detail the source depending on $\xi$ with $\omega=\vert{\bf q}\vert$ describing models of a massless scalar field, electromagnetic field and relativistic particles with space-time depending mass density. We obtain explicit conformally flat metrics solving Einstein equations with such a source of the energy-momentum.