Abstract. Recent developments in theories of non-Riemannian gravitational interactions are outlined. The question of the motion of a fluid in the presence of torsion and metric gradient fields is approached in terms of the divergence of the Einstein tensor associated with a general connection. In the absence of matter the variational equations associated with a broad class of actions involving non-Riemannian fields give rise to an Einstein-Proca system associated with the standard Levi-Civita connection.

We analyse the classical and q u a " theory of a scalar field interacting with gravitation in two dimensions. We describe a class of analytic solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation from which we are able to synthesize states that give prominence to a set of classical cosmologies. These states relate in a remarkable way to the general solution of the classical field equadons. We express these relations, without approximation, in t e m of a meuic and a closed form on the domain of quantum states.

The SLAC Linac can deliver damped bunches with ILC parameters for bunch charge and bunch length to End Station A. A 10Hz beam at 28.5 GeV energy can be delivered there, parasitic with PEP-II operation. We plan to use this facility to test prototype components of the Beam Delivery System and Interaction Region. We discuss our plans for this ILC Test Facility and preparations for carrying out experiments related to collimator wakefields and energy spectrometers. We also plan an interaction region mockup to investigate effects from backgrounds and beam-induced electromagnetic interference.

It has been suggested that single and double jets observed emanating from certain astrophysical objects may have a purely gravitational origin. We discuss new classes of pulsed gravitational wave solutions to the equation for perturbations of Ricci-flat spacetimes around Minkowski metrics, as models for the genesis of such phenomena. We discuss how these solutions are motivated by the analytic structure of spatially compact finite energy pulse solutions of the source-free Maxwell equations generated from complex chiral eigenmodes of a chirality operator. Complex gravitational pulse solutions to the linearised source-free Einstein equations are classified in terms of their chirality and generate a family of non-stationary real spacetime metrics. Particular members of these families are used as backgrounds in analysing time-like solutions to the geodesic equation for test particles. They are found numerically to exhibit both single and double jet-like features with dimensionless aspect ratios suggesting that it may be profitable to include such backgrounds in simulations of astrophysical jet dynamics from rotating accretion discs involving electromagnetic fields.