Achronal averaged null energy condition
- Department of Physics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont 05753 (United States) and Center for Theoretical Physics, Laboratory for Nuclear Science, and Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
The averaged null energy condition (ANEC) requires that the integral over a complete null geodesic of the stress-energy tensor projected onto the geodesic tangent vector is never negative. This condition is sufficient to prove many important theorems in general relativity, but it is violated by quantum fields in curved spacetime. However there is a weaker condition, which is free of known violations, requiring only that there is no self-consistent spacetime in semiclassical gravity in which ANEC is violated on a complete, achronal null geodesic. We indicate why such a condition might be expected to hold and show that it is sufficient to rule out closed timelike curves and wormholes connecting different asymptotically flat regions.
- OSTI ID:
- 21027768
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 76, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.76.064001; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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