Brans-Dicke wormholes in the Jordan and Einstein frames

TL;DR

This paper investigates static wormhole solutions within vacuum Brans-Dicke theory in both Jordan and Einstein frames, revealing limited existence and non-traversability in the former, and no solutions without energy condition violations in the latter.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of wormhole solutions in different frames of Brans-Dicke theory, highlighting the narrow parameter range and physical viability issues.

Findings

Wormholes exist only for -3/2<omega<-4/3 in the Jordan frame.

Wormholes are not traversable in the Jordan frame.

No wormhole solutions exist in the Einstein frame without violating energy conditions.

Abstract

We examine the possibility of static wormhole solutions in the vacuum Brans-Dicke theory both in the original (Jordan) frame and in the conformally rescaled (Einstein) frame. It turns out that, in the former frame, wormholes exist only in a very narrow interval of the coupling parameter, viz., -3/2<omega<-4/3. It is shown that these wormholes are not traversable in practice. In the latter frame, wormhole solutions do not exist at all unless energy conditions are violated by hand.