Thomas A. Roman

Quantum field theory constrains traversable wormhole geometries.

Recently a bound on negative energy densities in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime was derived for a minimally coupled, quantized, massless, scalar field in an arbitrary quantum state. The bound has the form of an uncertainty-principle-type constraint on the magnitude and duration of the negative energy density seen by a timelike geodesic observer. When spacetime is curved and/or has boundaries, we argue that the bound should hold in regions small compared to the minimum local characteristic radius of curvature or the distance to any boundaries, since spacetime can be considered approximately Minkowski on these scales. We apply the bound to the stress-energy of static traversable wormhole spacetimes. Our analysis implies that either the wormhole must be only a little larger than Planck size or that there is a large discrepancy in the length scales which characterize the wormhole. In the latter case, the negative energy must typically be concentrated in a thin band many orders of magnitude smaller than the throat size. These results would seem to make the existence of macroscopic traversable wormholes very improbable. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}

Inflating Lorentzian wormholes

It has been speculated that Lorentzian wormholes of the Morris-Thorne type might be allowed by the laws of physics at submicroscopic, e.g., Planck, scales and that a sufficiently advanced civilization might be able to enlarge them to classical size. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility that inflation might provide a natural mechanism for the enlargement of such wormholes to macroscopic size. A new classical metric is presented for a Lorentzian wormhole which is embedded in a flat de Sitter space. It is shown that the throat and the proper length of the wormhole inflate. The resulting properties and stress-energy tensor associated with this metric are discussed

Null energy conditions in quantum field theory

For the quantized, massless, minimally coupled real scalar field in four-dimensional Minkowski space, we show (by an explicit construction) that weighted averages of the null-contracted stress-energy tensor along null geodesics are unbounded from below on the class of Hadamard states. Thus there are no quantum inequalities along null geodesics in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. This is in contrast with the case for two-dimensional flat spacetime, where such inequalities do exist. We discuss in detail the properties of the quantum states used in our analysis, and also show that the renormalized expectation value of the stress energy tensor evaluated in these states satisfies the averaged null energy condition (as expected), despite the nonexistence of a null-averaged quantum inequality. However, we also show that in any globally hyperbolic spacetime the null-contracted stress energy averaged over a timelike worldline does satisfy a quantum inequality bound (for both massive and massless fields). We comment briefly on the implications of our results for singularity theorems.

Motion of inertial observers through negative energy

Recent research has indicated that negative energy fluxes due to quantum coherence effects obey uncertainty-principle-type inequalities of the form |ΔE|Δτ ≤ 1. Here |ΔE| is the magnitude of the negative energy which is transmitted on a time scale Δτ. Our main focus in this paper is on negative energy fluxes which are produced by the motion of observers through static negative energy regions. We find that although a quantum inequality appears to be satisfied for radially moving geodesic observers in two- and four-dimensional black hole spacetimes, an observer orbiting close to a black hole will see a constant negative energy flux. In addition, we show that inertial observers moving slowly through the Casimir vacuum can achieve arbitrarily large violations of the inequality

On wormholes with arbitrarily small quantities of exotic matter

Recently several models of traversable wormholes have been proposed which require only arbitrarily small amounts of negative energy to hold them open against self-collapse. If the exotic matter is assumed to be provided by quantum fields, then quantum inequalities can be used to place constraints on the negative energy densities required. In this paper, we introduce an alternative method for obtaining constraints on wormhole geometries, using a recently derived quantum inequality bound on the null-contracted stress-energy averaged over a timelike worldline. The bound allows us to perform a simplified analysis of general wormhole models, not just those with small quantities of exotic matter. We then use it to study, in particular, the models of Visser, Kar, and Dadhich (VKD) and the models of Kuhfittig. The VKD models are constrained to be either submicroscopic or to have a large discrepancy between throat size and curvature radius. A recent model of Kuhfittig is shown to be nontraversable. This is due to the fact that the throat of his wormhole flares outward so slowly that light rays and particles, starting from outside the throat, require an infinite lapse of affine parameter to reach the throat.

Probability distributions for quantum stress tensors in four dimensions

We treat the probability distributions for quadratic quantum fields, averaged with a Lorentzian test function, in four-dimensional Minkowski vacuum. These distributions share some properties with previous results in two-dimensional spacetime. Specifically, there is a lower bound at a finite negative value, but no upper bound. Thus arbitrarily large positive energy density fluctuations are possible. We are not able to give closed form expressions for the probability distribution, but rather use calculations of a finite number of moments to estimate the lower bounds, the asymptotic forms for large positive argument, and possible fits to the intermediate region. The first 65 moments are used for these purposes. All of our results are subject to the caveat that these distributions are not uniquely determined by the moments. However, we also give bounds on the cumulative distribution function that are valid for any distribution fitting these moments.We apply the asymptotic form of the electromagnetic energy density distribution to estimate the nucleation rates of black holes and of Boltzmann brains.

Probability distributions of smeared quantum stress tensors

We obtain in closed form the probability distribution for individual measurements of the stress-energy tensor of two-dimensional conformal field theory in the vacuum state, smeared in time against a Gaussian test function. The result is a shifted gamma distribution with the shift given by the previously known optimal quantum inequality bound. For small values of the central charge it is overwhelmingly likely that individual measurements of the sampled energy density in the vacuum give negative results. For the case of a single massless scalar field, the probability of finding a negative value is 84%. We also report on computations for four-dimensional massless scalar fields showing that the probability distribution of the smeared square field is also a shifted gamma distribution, but that the distribution of the energy density is not.

Averaged energy conditions and evaporating black holes.

In this paper the averaged weak and averaged null energy conditions, together with uncertainty-principle-type restrictions on negative energy ({open_quote}{open_quote}quantum inequalities{close_quote}{close_quote}), are examined in the context of evaporating black hole backgrounds in both two and four dimensions. In particular, integrals over only half-geodesics are studied. We determine the regions of the spacetime in which the averaged energy conditions are violated. In all cases where these conditions fail, there appear to be quantum inequalities which bound the magnitude and extent of the negative energy, and hence the degree of the violation. The possible relevance of these results for the validity of singularity theorems in evaporating black hole spacetimes is discussed. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}

Minkowski vacuum stress tensor fluctuations

We study the fluctuations of the stress tensor for a massless scalar field in two- and four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime in the vacuum state. Covariant expressions for the stress tensor correlation function are obtained as sums of derivatives of a scalar function. These expressions allow one to express spacetime averages of the correlation function as finite integrals. We also study the correlation between measurements of the energy density along a world line. We find that these measurements may be either positively correlated or anticorrelated. The anticorrelated measurements can be interpreted as telling us that, if one measurement yields one sign for the averaged energy density, a successive measurement with a suitable time delay is likely to yield a result with the opposite sign.

Effects of vacuum fluctuation suppression on atomic decay rates

Abstract The use of atomic decay rates as a probe of sub-vacuum phenomena will be studied. Because electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations are essential for radiative decay of excited atomic states, decay rates can serve as a measure of the suppression of vacuum fluctuations in non-classical states, such as squeezed vacua. In such states, the renormalized expectation value of the square of the electric field or the energy density can be periodically negative, representing suppression of vacuum fluctuations. We explore the extent to which atomic decays can be used to measure the mean squared electric field or energy density. We consider a scheme in which atoms in an excited state transit a closed cavity whose lowest mode contains photons in a non-classical state. A crucial feature of our analysis is that we do not employ the rotating wave approximation. The change in the decay probability of the atom in the cavity due to the non-classical state can, under certain circumstances, serve as a measure of the mean squared electric field or energy density in the cavity. We make some estimates of the magnitude of this effect, which indicate that an experimental test might be possible, although very challenging.