Geodesics in nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves with Λ. II

Abstract

We investigate all geodesics in the entire class of nonexpanding impulsive gravitational waves propagating in an (anti-)de Sitter universe using the distributional metric. We extend the regularization approach of part I [Sämann, C. et al., Classical Quantum Gravity 33(11), 115002 (2016)] to a full nonlinear distributional analysis within the geometric theory of generalized functions. We prove global existence and uniqueness of geodesics that cross the impulsive wave and hence geodesic completeness in full generality for this class of low regularity spacetimes. This, in particular, prepares the ground for a mathematically rigorous account on the “physical equivalence” of the continuous form with the distributional “form” of the metric.