A gravitational shock wave generated by a beam of null matter in quadratic gravity

Abstract

In the present work we approximate an ultrarelativistic jet by a homogeneous beam of null matter with finite width. Then, we study the influence of this beam over the spacetime metric in the framework of higher-derivative gravity. We find an exact shock wave solution of the quadratic gravity field equations and compare it with the solution to Einstein's gravity. We show that the effect of higher-curvature gravity becomes negligible at large distances from the beam axis. We also observe that only the Ricci-squared term contribute to modify the Einstein's gravity prediction. Furthermore, we note that this higher-curvature term contributes to regularize the discontinuities associated with the solution to Einstein's general relativity.