Solution of the Dirac equation in plane wave metric backgrounds (Q2487335)

The author considers a 4-dimensional Lorentzian metric that satisfies a plane-wave ansatz. (It is not assumed that the vacuum Einstein equations are satisfied.) Writing this metric in terms of a null coframe, similar to the Newman-Penrose formalism, results in a natural representation of the exterior bundle and of the Clifford bundle over the spacetime manifold. Then a special ansatz for a section in the Clifford bundle is made, and it is shown that any such section is contained in a minimal left ideal of the Clifford algebra and that it satisfies the Dirac equation on the plane-wave background. The physical relevance of this solution to the Dirac equation is not discussed; however, the author indicates that by similar techniques one might get solutions to the coupled Einstein-Maxwell-Dirac equations, and that this ``gives many interesting physical applications''.