COLLIDING GRAVITATIONAL PLANE-WAVES WITH NONCOLLINEAR POLARIZATIONS

A method devised recently by Hauser and Ernst [J. Math. Phys. 31, 871 (1990)] is exploited to deduce an elegant generalization of the FIB/EGH family of colliding wave solutions [J. Math. Phys. 29, 681 (1988)] involving five parameters plus a real analytic function psi-0(z,rho). All metrical and curvature quantities are evaluated explicitly, and solutions in which curvature singularities are avoidable are identified.