Gravitational wave propagation in isotropic cosmologies

We study the propagation of gravitational waves carrying arbitrary information through isotropic cosmologies. The waves are modeled as small perturbations of the background Robertson-Walker geometry. The perfect fluid matter distribution of the isotropic background is, in general, modified by small anisotropic stresses. For pure gravity waves, in which the perturbed Weyl tensor is radiative (i.e. type N in the Petrov classification), we construct explicit examples for which the presence of the anisotropic stress is shown to be essential and the histories of the wave fronts in the background Robertson-Walker geometry are shear-free null hypersurfaces. The examples derived in this case are analogous to the Bateman waves of electromagnetic theory.