Null Dust Solution - Physical Interpretation

Physical Interpretation

Physically speaking, a null dust describes either gravitational radiation, or some kind of nongravitational radiation which is described by a relativistic classical field theory (such as electromagnetic radiation), or a combination of these two. Null dusts include vacuum solutions as a special case.

Phenomena which can be modeled by null dust solutions include:

• a beam of neutrinos assumed for simplicity to be massless (treated according to classical physics),
• a very high-frequency electromagnetic wave,
• a beam of incoherent electromagnetic radiation.

In particular, a plane wave of incoherent electromagnetic radiation is a linear superposition of plane waves, all moving in the same direction but having randomly chosen phases and frequencies. (Even though the Einstein field equation is nonlinear, a linear superposition of comoving plane waves is possible.) Here, each electromagnetic plane wave has a well defined frequency and phase, but the superposition does not. Individual electromagnetic plane waves are modeled by null electrovacuum solutions, while an incoherent mixture can be modeled by a null dust.