Axial gravitational waves in Bianchi I universe

Abstract

In this paper, we have studied the propagation of axial gravitational waves in Bianchi I universe using the Regge–Wheeler gauge. In this gauge, there are only two nonzero components of [Formula: see text] in the case of axial waves: [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. The field equations in absence of matter have been derived both for the unperturbed as well as axially perturbed metric. These field equations are solved simultaneously by assuming the expansion scalar [Formula: see text] to be proportional to the shear scalar [Formula: see text] (so that [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] are the metric coefficients and [Formula: see text] is an arbitrary constant), and the wave equation for the perturbation parameter [Formula: see text] has been derived. We used the method of separation of variables to solve for this parameter, and have subsequently determined [Formula: see text]. We then discuss a few special cases to interpret the results. We find that the anisotropy of the background spacetime is responsible for the damping of the gravitational waves as they propagate through this spacetime. The perturbations depend on the values of the angular momentum [Formula: see text]. The field equations in the presence of matter reveal that the axially perturbed spacetime leads to perturbations only in the azimuthal velocity of the fluid leaving the matter field undisturbed.