The Penrose limit of the Weyl double copy

Abstract We embed the Penrose limit into the Weyl classical double copy. Thereby, we provide a lift of the double copy properties of plane wave spacetimes into black hole geometries and we open a novel avenue towards taking the classical double copy beyond statements about algebraically special backgrounds. In particular, the Penrose limit, viewed as the leading order Fermi coordinate expansion around a null geodesic, complements approaches leveraging asymptotic flatness such as the asymptotic Weyl double copy. Along the way, we show how our embedding of the Penrose limit within the Weyl double copy naturally fixes the functional ambiguity in the double copy for Petrov type N spacetimes. We also highlight the utility of a spinorial approach to the Penrose limit. In particular, we use this spinorial approach to derive a simple analytical expression for arbitrary Penrose limits of four-dimensional, vacuum type D spacetimes.