The ultrarelativistic Reissner-Nordstrom field in the Colombeau algebra

The electromagnetic field of the ultrarelativistic Reissner-Nordstrom solution shows the physically highly unsatisfactory property of a vanishing field tensor but a nonzero, i.e., delta-like, energy density. The aim of this work is to analyze this situation from a mathematical point of view, using the framework of Colombeau's theory of nonlinear generalized functions. It is shown that the physically unsatisfactory situation is mathematically perfectly defined and that one cannot avoid such situations when dealing with distributional valued field tensors. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.