The gravity of light

Abstract: The gravitational field of an idealized plane-wave solution of the Maxwell equations can be described in closed form. After discussing this particular solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations, the motion of neutral test particles, which are sensitive only to the gravitational background field, is analyzed. This is followed by a corresponding analysis of the dynamics of neutral fields in the particular Einstein-Maxwell background, considering scalars, Majorana spinors and abelian vector fields, respectively.