Quantifying energy condition violations in traversable wormholes

SAYAN KAR¹, NARESH DADHICH² and MATT VISSER³

¹Department of Physics and Centre for Theoretical Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302, India

²Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007, India

³School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

E-mail: sayan@cts.iitkgp.ernet.in; nkd@iucaa.ernet.in; matt.visser@vuw.ac.nz

Abstract. The `theoretical' existence of traversable Lorentzian wormholes in the classical, macroscopic world is plagued by the violation of the well-known energy conditions of general relativity. In this brief article we show: (i) how the extent of violation can be quantified using certain volume integrals and (ii) whether this `amount of violation' can be minimised for some specific cut-and-paste geometric constructions. Examples and possibilities are also outlined.

Keywords. Wormholes; energy conditions; general relativity.

PACS Nos 04.70.Dy; 04.62.+v; 11.10.Kk