Quantum Tunneling and Quasinormal Modes in the Spacetime of Alcubierre Warp Drive

TL;DR

This paper investigates Hawking radiation effects and quasinormal modes in Alcubierre's warp drive spacetime, revealing temperature proportionality to warp velocity and stability of scalar perturbations.

Contribution

It provides the first analysis of Hawking radiation and quasinormal modes in the Alcubierre warp drive spacetime, combining quantum tunneling and perturbation methods.

Findings

Hawking temperature proportional to warp velocity

Scalar perturbations lead to stable quasinormal modes

Hawking radiation expression consistent for different particles

Abstract

In a seminal paper, Alcubierre showed that Einstein's theory of general relativity appears to allow a super-luminal motion. In the present study, we use a recent eternal-warp-drive solution found by Alcubierre to study the effect of Hawking radiation upon an observer located within the warp drive in the framework of the quantum tunneling method. We find the same expression for the Hawking temperatures associated with the tunneling of both massive vector and scalar particles, and show this expression to be proportional to the velocity of the warp drive. On the other hand, since the discovery of gravitational waves, the quasinormal modes (QNMs) of black holes have also been extensively studied. With this puprpose in mind, we perform a QNM analysis of massive scalar field perturbations in the background of the eternal-Alcubierre-warp-drive (EAWD) spacetime. Our analytical analysis shows that massive scalar perturbations lead to stable QNMs.