5–10 Jul 2021
Europe/Rome timezone

Session

Wormholes, Energy Conditions and Time Machines

AT3
6 Jul 2021, 09:30

Conveners

Wormholes, Energy Conditions and Time Machines: Block 1

  • Francisco Lobo (Science Faculty of the University of Lisbon)
  • Diego Rubiera-Garcia (Complutense University of Madrid)

Wormholes, Energy Conditions and Time Machines: Block 2

  • Diego Rubiera-Garcia (Complutense University of Madrid)
  • Francisco Lobo (Science Faculty of the University of Lisbon)

Description

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 metric of the geometry is determined. However, one may solve the Einstein field equation in the reverse direction, namely, one first considers an interesting and exotic spacetime metric, then finds the matter source responsible for the respective geometry. In this manner, it was found that some of these solutions possess a peculiar property, namely 'exotic matter,' involving a stress-energy tensor that violates the null energy condition. These geometries also allow closed timelike curves, with the respective causality violations. These solutions are primarily useful as 'gedanken-experiments' and as a theoretician's probe of the foundations of general relativity, and include traversable wormholes and superluminal 'warp drive' spacetimes. In this parallel session, in addition to extensively exploring interesting features, in particular, the physical properties and characteristics of these 'exotic spacetimes,' we also explore other non-trivial general relativistic geometries that generate closed timelike curves.

Presentation materials

Miguel Alcubierre (Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico)
07/07/2021, 06:30
Wormholes, Energy Conditions and Time Machines
Invited talk in the parallel session

In this talk I will give a brief historical review of the original warp bubble geometry, as well as the main problems with it, namely the need for negative energy and the horizon problem.

Wormholes, Energy Conditions and Time Machines
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