Weak energy condition violation and superluminal travel
Abstract
Recent solutions to the Einstein Field Equations involving negative energy densities, i.e., matter violating the weak-energy-condition, have been obtained, namely traversable wormholes, the Alcubierre warp drive and the Krasnikov tube. These solutions are related to superluminal travel, although locally the speed of light is not surpassed. It is difficult to define faster-than-light travel in generic space-times, and one can construct metrics which apparently allow superluminal travel, but are in fact flat Minkowski space-times. Therefore, to avoid these difficulties it is important to provide an appropriate definition of superluminal travel.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0204038,
title = {Weak energy condition violation and superluminal travel},
author = {Francisco Lobo and Paulo Crawford},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0204038},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
15 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX2e, Springer style files -included. Contribution to the Proceedings of the Spanish Relativity Meeting-2001 (Madrid, September 2001)