Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2012
Abstract
General method which is useful for investigation of geometrical and physical properties of an arbitrarily dimensional spacetime is presented. This is based on the systematic analysis of relative motion of free test particles described by equation of geodesic deviation which is rewritten with respect to a natural orthonormal frame and then decomposed into a canonical set of transverse, longitudinal and Newton-Coulomb-type components, isotropic influence of a cosmological constant, and contributions arising from matter content of the universe.
The utility of this method is illustrated on the family of Kundt spacetimes in higher dimensions, in particular pp-waves.