Colliding null matter with a specific stress tensor

Abstract

The accretion disks around black holes consist of infalling matter boosted almost to the speed of light making collisions with opposite counterpart. This is the rough picture occurring near black holes or other strongly gravitating centers that produce observed phenomena such as astrophysical jets. A toy model that can be considered imitating such a process is colliding null sources in general relativity. We present such a simple model projected into the plane of null coordinates that takes into account only neutral sources. We show that even at such a simplified model, uncharged and non-rotating, it is possible to obtain jet-like ejections albeit they lie below the horizon. In the present study the spacetime consists of either one of i) a cloud of strings, ii) a global monopole, iii) a particular model of bumblebee gravity, all described by a similar class of stress-energy tensor. There are gravitational waves accompanying the null sources and naturally collision of gravitational waves is also taken into account. After the collision, the spacetime contains both null and non-null sources, followed by trailing gravitational radiations. Locally the interaction region of the colliding null-sources and gravitational waves is isometric to the static background spacetime.