Vacuum gravitational fields with a null Killing vector

Abstract

Vacuum gravitational fields admitting a light-like Killing field were systematically studied starting around 1960. Besides the already known plane waves, a second class of gravitational wave fields was found. In contrast to plane waves, their wave surfaces were not flat, but had a negative Gaussian curvature. Recently, such solutions found attention again as "twisted gravitational waves". In the paper we review and extend the earlier results. In suitable coordinates, the metric assumes a simple shape. The waves are then determined by a single function that satisfies a Laplace equation in cylindrical coordinates. The "twisted waves" prove to be a special case.