%0 Journal Article
%T Teukolsky Master Equation: De Rham wave equation for the gravitational and electromagnetic fields in vacuum
%A Donato Bini
%A Christian Cherubini
%A Robert T Jantzen
%A Remo J. Ruffini
%J Physics
%D 2002
%I arXiv
%R 10.1143/PTP.107.967
%X A new version of the Teukolksy Master Equation, describing any massless field of different spin $s=1/2,1,3/2,2$ in the Kerr black hole, is presented here in the form of a wave equation containing additional curvature terms. These results suggest a relation between curvature perturbation theory in general relativity and the exact wave equations satisfied by the Weyl and the Maxwell tensors, known in the literature as the de Rham-Lichnerowicz Laplacian equations. We discuss these Laplacians both in the Newman-Penrose formalism and in the Geroch-Held-Penrose variant for an arbitrary vacuum spacetime. Perturbative expansion of these wave equations results in a recursive scheme valid for higher orders. This approach, apart from the obvious implications for the gravitational and electromagnetic wave propagation on a curved spacetime, explains and extends the results in the literature for perturbative analysis by clarifying their true origins in the exact theory.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0203069v1