Cumulative effects of laser-generated gravitational shock waves

Abstract

The emission of light pulses is expected to generate gravitational waves, opening the possibility of controlling gravity in an Earthed laboratory. However, measuring the optically-driven spacetime deformations is challenging due to the inherently weak interaction. We explore the possibility to achieve a detectable gravitational effect from light emission by examining the cumulative effect of a sequence of laser-generated gravitational shock waves on a test particle. We derive an exact solution to the Einstein equations for cylindrically-shaped optical beams with constant energy density, imposing continuity condition for the metric and its first-order derivatives. Our analysis reveals that laser-induced gravitational fields cause a spatial shift in the test particle, which is measurable within current interferometric technology.