Related papers: How Much NEC Breaking Can the Universe Endure?
We study a cosmological scenario featuring an early phase of null energy condition (NEC) violation. Within this framework, we show that perturbative unitarity bounds place strong constraints on both the amplitude and the spectral tilt of…
In this paper the averaged weak (AWEC) and averaged null (ANEC) energy conditions, together with uncertainty principle-type restrictions on negative energy (``quantum inequalities''), are examined in the context of evaporating black hole…
We consider how accelerated expansion, whether due to inflation or dark energy, imposes strong constraints on fundamental theories obtained by compactification from higher dimensions. For theories that obey the null energy condition (NEC),…
The averaged null energy condition has been recently shown to hold for linear quantum fields in a large class of spacetimes. Nevertheless, it is easy to show by using a simple scaling argument that ANEC as stated cannot hold generically in…
We argue that ``effective'' superluminal travel, potentially caused by the tipping over of light cones in Einstein gravity, is always associated with violations of the null energy condition (NEC). This is most easily seen by working…
In classical physics the energy density of a field, such as the electromagnetic field, is always positive. However, in quantum field theory it has been shown that the energy density can be negative. There are restrictions, called the…
The averaged null energy condition has known violations for quantum fields in curved space, even if one considers only achronal geodesics. Many such examples involve rapid variation in the stress-energy tensor in the vicinity of the…
Energy conditions, especially the null energy condition (NEC), are generically imposed on solutions to retain a physically sensible classical field theory and they also play an important role in the AdS/CFT duality. Using this duality, we…
Violation of the null energy condition plays an important role both in the general theory of relativity and quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. Over the years, it has been shown that the violation of the null energy condition leads…
New measurements of the expansion rate of the Universe have plunged the standard model of cosmology into a severe crisis. In this letter, we propose a simple resolution to the problem that relies on a first order phase transition in a dark…
In general relativity, the energy conditions are invoked to restrict general energy-momentum tensors $T_{\mu\nu}$ in different frameworks, and to derive general results that hold in a variety of general contexts on physical grounds. We show…
Connections are uncovered between the averaged weak (AWEC) and averaged null (ANEC) energy conditions, and quantum inequality restrictions on negative energy for free massless scalar fields. In a two-dimensional compactified Minkowski…
The quantum null energy condition (QNEC) is the only known consistent local energy condition in quantum theories. Contrary to the classical energy condition which are known to be violated in QFT, QNEC is a consequence of the quantum…
We investigate the quantum null energy condition (QNEC) in holographic CFTs, focusing on half-spaces and particular classes of states. We present direct, and in certain cases nonperturbative, calculations for both the diagonal and off-…
The usual scenario of ``eternal inflation'' involves an approximately de Sitter spacetime undergoing upward fluctuations of the local expansion rate $H$. This spacetime requires frequent violations of the Null Energy Condition (NEC). We…
Major observational efforts in the coming decade are designed to probe the equation of state of dark energy. Measuring a deviation of the equation-of-state parameter w from -1 would indicate a dark energy that cannot be represented solely…
By studying the present cosmological data, particularly on CMB, SNeIA and LSS, we find that the future fate of the universe, for simple linear models of the dark energy equation-of-state, can vary between the extremes of (I) a divergence of…
Motivated by the apparent discrepancy between Cosmic Microwave Background measurements of the Hubble constant and measurements from Type-Ia supernovae, we construct a model for Dark Energy with equation of state $w = p / \rho < -1$,…
A six parameter cosmological model, involving a vacuum energy density that is extremely tiny compared to fundamental particle physics scales, describes a large body of increasingly accurate astronomical data. In a first part of this brief…
We examine the quantum null energy condition (QNEC) for a $2+1$-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) at strong coupling in the background of a wormhole spacetime by employing the AdS/CFT correspondence. First, we numerically construct a…