  The gravitational field of an idealized plane-wave solution of the Maxwell
equations can be described in closed form. After discussing this particular
solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations, the motion of neutral test
particles, which are sensitive only to the gravitational background field, is
analyzed. This is followed by a corresponding analysis of the dynamics of
neutral fields in the particular Einstein-Maxwell background, considering
scalars, Majorana spinors and abelian vector fields, respectively.
