New Insights into the Nature of Nonlinear Gravitational Waves

Abstract: We study the evolution equations for gravitational waves, which are derived using the full metric to raise and lower indices. This method ensures full consistency between the Ricci tensor and all gauge restrictions and requirements, and allows a meaningful expansion of all tensors up to second order, avoiding several inconsistencies and contradictions observed in previous work. Taking the harmonic gauge to second order in the perturbation theory results in a new nonlinear equation. We show that non-trivial solutions to this equation are necessarily non-plane wave modes with a non-zero trace. These solutions must contain both longitudinal and transverse components, as both are permitted by the gauge restrictions.