Are Petrov type-N and D spacetimes admitting CTCs valid in $f(R,\mathcal{L}_m,\Phi,X)$ gravity?
Abstract
We ask whether two classical time-machine geometries, the Ori (2005) compact-vacuum-core metric and the Ahmed (2018) four-dimensional generalisation of Misner space, remain admissible exact solutions when the gravitational sector is enlarged to the recently proposed class, an extension of that couples curvature, the matter Lagrangian density, a scalar field , and its kinetic invariant . Working with the explicit model and a vanishing scalar potential, we compute the curvature invariants, the modified field equations, and the effective stress-energy components produced by the harmonic scalar profile in both backgrounds. The Ricci scalar vanishes for the Ori metric and obeys for the Ahmed metric; the kinetic invariant takes the explicit forms and , respectively. Both metrics solve the field equations of the modified theory with anisotropic matter sources, and the chronology-violating regions (Ori) and (Ahmed) survive the modification. Energy-density profiles measured by a closed-timelike-curve observer match those measured by a static observer outside the chronology horizon, so the additional scalar degree of freedom in gravity does not enforce a chronology-protection mechanism in either background. The conclusion mirrors the parallel result for the Li time-machine and supplies a consistency test for scalar-extended modified gravity in non-globally-hyperbolic settings.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.26696,
title = {Are Petrov type-N and D spacetimes admitting CTCs valid in $f(R,\mathcal{L}_m,\Phi,X)$ gravity?},
author = {Faizuddin Ahmed and Ahmad Al-Badawi and İzzet Sakallı},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.26696},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
20 pages, 10 Figures, 1 Table (comments are welcome)