Dirac particles in a gravitational shock wave. (21st May 2018) - Collas, Peter
Abstract: Using the Newman–Penrose formalism we calculate the positive energy momentum eigenstates of the Dirac equation for a plane polarized gravitational wave pulse. We then consider Dirac particles whose spins are polarized in each orthonormal coordinate direction prior to the arrival of the gravitational wave pulse, and determine how the spins are changed by the pulse after its departure.