Monday, October 15, 2007

Wormholes return

This arxiv paper seems important, if it is correct in its conclusions. It suggests that orinary matter, not "exotic matter" may be enough to support a wormhole, which opens the possibility of time and multiverse travel. Hey you, science journalist, tell me if I am right.

From the introduction:
The equations of gravitation admit solutions, known as Lorentzian wormholes, which connect two regions of the same universe (or of two universes) by a throat, which is a minimal area surface. Such kind of geometries would present some features of particular interest, as for example the possibility of time travel (see Refs. [4]). But a central objection against the actual existence of wormholes is that in Einstein gravity the flare-out condition [5] to be satisfied at the throat requires the presence of exotic matter, that is, matter violating the energy conditions [3]. In this sense, thin-shell wormholes have the advantage that the exotic matter would be located only at the shell....
...we show that for certain values of the parameters, thin-shell wormholes could be supported by matter not violating the energy conditions....
And from the body of the paper:
Thus, in the picture providing a clear meaning to matter in the shell, in Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity the violation of the energy conditions could be avoided, and wormholes could be supported by ordinary matter.

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