Type D Spacetimes and the Weyl Double Copy

Abstract

We study the double-copy relation between classical solutions in gauge theory and gravity, focusing on four-dimensional vacuum metrics of algebraic type D, a class that includes several important solutions. We present a double copy of curvatures that applies to all spacetimes of this type -- the Weyl double copy -- relating the curvature of the spacetime to an electromagnetic field strength. We show that the Weyl double copy is consistent with the previously known Kerr-Schild double copy, and in fact resolves certain ambiguities of the latter. The most interesting new example of the classical double copy presented here is that of the C-metric. This well-known solution, which represents a pair of uniformly accelerated black holes, is mapped to the Lienard-Wiechert potential for a pair of uniformly accelerated charges. We also present a new double-copy interpretation of the Eguchi-Hanson instanton.