THE EFFECT OF POLARIZATION OF COLLIDING PLANE GRAVITATIONAL WAVES ON FOCUSING SINGULARITIES

A five-parameter class of colliding plane gravitational wave solutions is obtained by using the soliton technique of Belinsky and Zakharov, which includes most of the important known solutions. A four-parameter subclass of the solutions can be considered as a noncollinear generalization of the famous Szekeres family of colliding collinear polarization plane gravitational wave solutions. The effect of polarization of colliding plane gravitational waves on the formation and nature of singularities is, in turn, investigated.