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arXiv · 2405.12928

Displacement within velocity effect in gravitational wave memory

P. -M. Zhang·P. A. Horvathy
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Abstract

Particles initially at rest hit by a passing sandwich gravitational wave exhibit, in general, thevelocity memory effect (VM): they fly apart with constant velocity. For specific values of the wave parameters their motion can however become pure displacement (DM) as suggested by Zel'dovich and Polnarev. For such a ``miraculous'' value, the particle trajectory is composed of an integer number of (approximate) standing half-waves. Our statements are illustrated numerically by a Gaussian, and analytically by the P\"oschl-Teller profiles.

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P. -M. Zhang, P. A. Horvathy. 2024-05-21. Displacement within velocity effect in gravitational wave memory. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aop.2024.169784

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