Nature of Gravitational Synchrotron Radiation

Abstract

Ultrarelativistic geodesic particle orbits in the Schwarzschild geometry produce radiation (GSR) with angular distributions like that of synchrotron radiation. The spectra of high-frequency scalar, electromagnetic, and gravitational GSR are compared to each other and to the spectrum of synchrotron radiation. The differences among the spectra are explained in terms of the shape of the effective potential for GSR and the inapplicability of geometric optics.