Asymptotic structure of radiation in higher dimensions

Abstract

We characterize a general gravitational field near conformal infinity (null, spacelike or timelike) in spacetimes of any dimension. This is based on an explicit evaluation of the dependence of the radiative component of the Weyl tensor on the null direction from which infinity is approached. Behaviour similar to a peeling property is recovered, and it is shown that the directional structure of radiation has a universal character that is determined by the algebraic type of the spacetime. This is a natural generalization of analogous results obtained previously in the four-dimensional case.