Related papers: Perturbative superluminal censorship and the null …
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…
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.…
Quantum fields can notoriously violate the null energy condition (NEC). In a cosmological context, NEC violation can lead to, e.g., dark energy at late times with an equation-of-state parameter smaller than $-1$ and nonsingular bounces at…
The violation of the null energy condition (NEC) is essential for constructing nonsingular cosmological scenarios, such as Genesis cosmology, which avoids the initial singularity by initiating cosmic evolution from an asymptotically…
I investigate the relationship between faster-than-light travel and weak-energy-condition violation, i.e., negative energy densities. In a general spacetime it is difficult to define faster-than-light travel, and I give an example of a…
Explorations of the violation of null energy condition (NEC) in cosmology could enrich our understanding of the very early universe and the related gravity theories. Although a fully stable NEC violation can be realized in the ``beyond…
Energy conditions are attempts to summarise the properties of realistic descriptions of matter via constraints on the energy-momentum tensor. This is, for example, useful when one wants to understand the types of spacetime geometry that can…
In the context of Einstein gravity, if the null energy condition (NEC) is satisfied, the energy density in expanding space-times always decreases while in contracting space-times the energy density grows and the universe eventually…
In light of the recent results from the OPERA collaboration, indicating that neutrinos can travel superluminally, I review a simple extra-dimensional strategy for accommodating such behavior; and I also explain why it is hard in this…
We use a WKB approximation to establish a relation between the wavefront velocity in a strongly coupled theory and the local speed of light in a holographic dual, with our main focus put on systems with Lifshitz scaling with dynamical…
Within the low-energy effective field theories of QED and gravity, the low-energy speed of light or that of gravitational waves can typically be mildly superluminal in curved spacetimes. Related to this, small scattering time advances…
A non-singular cosmological bounce in the Einstein frame can only take place if the Null Energy Condition (NEC) is violated. We explore situations where a single scalar field drives the NEC violation and derive the constraints imposed by…
The violation of the null energy condition (NEC) may play a crucial role in enabling a scalar field to climb over high potential barriers, potentially significant in the very early universe. We propose a single-field model where the…
We study whether a violation of the null energy condition necessarily implies the presence of instabilities. We prove that this is the case in a large class of situations, including isotropic solids and fluids relevant for cosmology. On the…
We examine closed timelike curves (CTCs) and "effective" superluminal travel in a spacetime containing naked line singularities, which we call "wires". Each wire may be straight-line singularity or a ring singularity. The Weak Energy…
The null energy condition (NEC), an important assumption of the Penrose singularity theorem, is violated by quantum fields. The natural generalization of the NEC in quantum field theory, the renormalized null energy averaged over a finite…
The null energy condition (NEC) is a cornerstone of general relativity, and its violation could leave observable imprints in the cosmic gravitational wave spectrum. Theoretical models suggest that NEC violations during inflation can amplify…
It continues to be alleged that superluminal influences of any sort would be inconsistent with special relativity for the following three reasons: (i) they would imply the existence of a distinguished' frame; (ii) they would allow the…
Eternal inflation is shown to require violations of the Null Energy Condition (NEC) on superhorizon scales. With light scalar fields as the matter sources in a de Sitter background, there can be no classical or semiclassical violations of…
Null Energy Condition (NEC) can be violated in a consistent way in models with unconventional kinetic terms, notably, in Galileon theories and their generalizations. We make use of one of these, the scale-invariant kinetic braiding model,…