Radiation, photon orbits, and torsion in strongly curved spacetimes

Four topics on the strong field aspects of general relativity are presented. These are the role of constraining forces for ultrarelativistic particle motion as a source of gravitational radiation, the study of electromagnetic radiation due to space-time oscillations, the light scattering properties of a class of naked singularities, and the relation of gravitation theories with torsion to general relativity. The astrophysical implications and unusual physical phenomena associated with very intense gravitational fields are discussed for these four topics