August 16, 1995
In a number of papers it has been claimed that the time machine are quantum unstable, which manifests itself in the divergence of the vacuum expectation value of the stress-energy tensor $\langle{\bf T}\rangle$ near the Cauchy horizon. The expression for $\langle{\bf T}\rangle$ was found in these papers on the basis of some specific approach \cite{Fro,KimT}.\par We show that this approach is untenable in that the above expression firstly is not derived from some more fundamen...
July 15, 2002
A class of spacetimes (comprising the Alcubierre bubble, Krasnikov tube, and a certain type of wormholes) is considered that admits `superluminal travel' in a strictly defined sense. Such spacetimes (they are called `shortcuts' in this paper) were suspected to be impossible because calculations based on `quantum inequalities' suggest that their existence would involve Planck-scale energy densities and hence unphysically large values of the `total amount of negative energy' E_...
November 21, 1997
There are several examples known of two dimensional spacetimes which are linearly stable when perturbed by test scalar classical fields, but which are unstable when perturbed by test scalar quantum fields. We elucidate the mechanism behind such instabilities by considering minimally coupled, massless, scalar, test quantum fields on general two dimensional spacetimes with Cauchy horizons which are classically stable. We identify a geometric feature of such spacetimes which is ...
November 16, 2005
A design of a configuration for violation of the averaged null energy condition (ANEC) and consequently other classic energy conditions (CECs), is presented. The methods of producing effective exotic matter (EM) for a traversable wormhole (TW) are discussed. Also, the approaches of less necessity of TWs to EM are considered. The result is, TW and similar structures; i.e., warp drive (WD) and Krasnikov tube are not just theoretical subjects for teaching general relativity (GR)...
May 11, 1998
In quantum field theory, there exist states in which the expectation value of the energy density for a quantized field is negative. These negative energy densities lead to many problems. Although quantum field theory introduces negative energies, it also provides constraints in the form of quantum inequalities (QI's). These uncertainty principle-type relations limit the magnitude and duration of any negative energy. We derive a general form of the QI on the energy density for...
November 19, 2004
The warp drive envisioned by Alcubierre that can move a spaceship faster than light can, with modification, levitate it as if it were lighter than light, even allow it to go below a black hole's horizon and return unscathed. Wormhole-like versions of the author's `drainhole' (1973) might provide the drive, in the form of a by-pass of the spaceship composed of a multitude of tiny topological tunnels. The by-pass would divert the gravitational `ether' into a sink covering part ...
February 26, 2012
The Alcubierre warp drive allows a spaceship to travel at an arbitrarily large global velocity by deforming the spacetime in a bubble around the spaceship. Little is known about the interactions between massive particles and the Alcubierre warp drive, or the effects of an accelerating or decelerating warp bubble. We examine geodesics representative of the paths of null and massive particles with a range of initial velocities from -c to c interacting with an Alcubierre warp bu...
October 24, 2007
The General Theory of Relativity has been an extremely successful theory, with a well established experimental footing, at least for weak gravitational fields. Its predictions range from the existence of black holes, gravitational radiation to the cosmological models, predicting a primordial beginning, namely the big-bang. All these solutions have been obtained by first considering a plausible distribution of matter, and through the Einstein field equation, the spacetime metr...
April 24, 2011
While wormhole spacetimes are predictions of the general theory of relativity, specific solutions may not be compatible with quantum field theory. This paper modifies the charged wormhole model of Kim and Lee with the aim of satisfying an extended version of a quantum inequality due to Ford and Roman. The modified metric may be viewed as a solution of the Einstein field equations representing a charged wormhole that is compatible with quantum field theory.
February 9, 2022
Alcubierre warp-drive was first to introduce superluminal travel from different approach. Instead of creating short cut through spacetime via a wormhole, geometrodynamics of simultaneously contract and expand spacetime were conjectured. However, both methods require exotic matter that violate energy condition. In this paper we employ the concept of braneworld that naturally influence spacetime geometrodynamics. Start from define and develop the spacetime metric of braneworld ...