Closed timelike curves in general relativity

We consider the region of closed timelike curves (CTC's) in three-dimensional flat Lorentz spacetimes. The interest in this global geometrical feature goes beyond the purely mathematical. Such spacetimes may be considered lower-dimensional toy models of sourceless Einstein gravity or cosmology. In particular, our interest in this note will be to find the set free of CTC's for $E/<\gamma>$, where $E$ is modeled on Minkowski space and $\gamma$ is a Poincar\'e transformation. We...

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to some fundamental issues in General Relativity. It is argued that these deep issues cannot be resolved within the standard approach to general relativity that considers {\em every} solution of Einstein's field equations to be of relevance to some, hypothetical or not, physical situation. Hence, to resolve the considered problems of the standard approach to general relativity, one must go beyond it. A possible approach, a theo...

While it is tempting to think of closed timelike curves (CTCs) around rotating bodies such as a black hole as being "caused" by the rotation of the source, Andr\'eka et al. pointed out that the underlying physics is not as straightforward since such CTCs are "counter-rotating", i.e., the time orientation (the opening of the local light cones) of the CTCs is opposite to the direction in which the singularity or the ergosphere rotates. It was also suggested that this is a gener...

The existence of time machines, understood as spacetime constructions exhibiting physically realised closed timelike curves (CTCs), would raise fundamental problems with causality and challenge our current understanding of classical and quantum theories of gravity. In this paper, we investigate three proposals for time machines which share some common features: cosmic strings in relative motion, where the conical spacetime appears to allow CTCs; colliding gravitational shock ...

Closed timelike curves (CTCs) appear in many solutions of the Einstein equation, even with reasonable matter sources. These solutions appear to violate causality and so are considered problematic. Since CTCs reflect the global properties of a spacetime, one can attempt to change its topology, without changing its geometry, in such a way that the former CTCs are no longer closed in the new spacetime. This procedure is informally known as unwrapping. However, changes in global ...

In the present article we find a new class of solutions of Einstein's field equations. It describes stationary, cylindrically symmetric spacetimes with closed timelike geodesics everywhere outside the symmetry axis. These spacetimes contain a magnetic field parallel to the axis, a perfect fluid with constant density and pressure, and Lorentz invariant vacuum with energy density represented by a negative cosmological constant.

Einstein's theory of general relativity models the physical universe using spacetimes which satisfy Einstein's gravitational field equations. To date, Einstein's theory has been enormously successful in modeling observed gravitational phenomena, both at the astrophysical and the cosmological levels. The collection of spacetime solutions of Einstein's equations which have been effectively used for modeling the physical universe is a very small subset of the full set of solut...

Closed timelike curves (CTCs) are trajectories in spacetime that effectively travel backwards in time: a test particle following a CTC can in principle interact with its former self in the past. CTCs appear in many solutions of Einstein's field equations and any future quantum version of general relativity will have to reconcile them with the requirements of quantum mechanics and of quantum field theory. A widely accepted quantum theory of CTCs was proposed by Deutsch. Here w...

We present two modifications to the rotating Alcubierre metric [1], which was shown to permit closed timelike curves (CTCs). We find that if the rotation rate of the spacetime is made spatially dependent, in certain cases there exist simple approximate timelike geodesics that are also CTCs, provided that the velocity of the warp bubble varies slowly. The second modification is essentially the original Alcubierre metric [ 2 ] with a periodic boundary, resulting in a cylindrica...

Examples are given of the creation of closed timelike curves by choices of coordinate identifications. Following G\"odel's prescription, it is seen that flat spacetime can produce closed timelike curves with structure similar to that of G\"odel. In this context, coordinate identifications rather than exotic gravitational effects of general relativity are shown to be the source of closed timelike curves. Removing the periodic time coordinate restriction, the modified G\"odel f...