Kerr--Schild metrics and gravitational radiation

Abstract

We describe conditions assuring that the Kerr--Schild type solutions of Einstein equations with pure radiation fields are asymptotically flat at future null infinity. Such metrics cannot describe ``true'' gravitational radiation from bounded sources--it is shown that the Bondi news function vanishes identically. We obtain formulae for the total energy and angular momentum at scri+. As an example we consider non-stationary generalization of the Kerr metric given by Vaidya and Patel. Angular momentum and total energy are expressed in closed form as functions of retarded time.