Quantum-inspired wormholes from String T-Duality

TL;DR

This paper explores how string T-duality induces a minimal length scale that regularizes gravity, leading to novel wormhole solutions with minimized energy condition violations, enhancing their physical plausibility.

Contribution

It introduces a string-inspired UV cutoff via T-duality, constructing regular, singularity-free wormholes with reduced null energy condition violations using thin shell models.

Findings

Wormholes are regular and free of curvature singularities.

NEC violations are minimized and localized in thin shell constructions.

T-duality induces a natural UV cutoff that regularizes gravitational potentials.

Abstract

The intrinsic non-perturbative features of string-theoretic corrections, particularly those arising from T-duality, have been shown to naturally introduce an effective ultraviolet (UV) cutoff into the gravitational framework. This cutoff, often referred to as the zero-point length in the context of path integral duality, acts as a fundamental minimal length scale that regulates short-distance divergences. Using the established correspondence between T-duality and path integral duality, it has been shown that the static Newtonian potential becomes regularized at small distances. Building upon this regular behavior, we proceed to construct self-consistent, spherically symmetric, and electrically neutral wormhole solutions, which remain free of curvature singularities and embodies the effects of this duality-induced UV completion. We explore wormhole configurations with the aim of minimizing violations of the null energy condition (NEC). In fact, solutions with a constant redshift function or specific shape functions generally exhibit NEC violations throughout the entire spacetime. To address this, we explore two distinct thin shell constructions: (i) wormholes formed by matching an interior wormhole geometry to an exterior Schwarzschild vacuum spacetime, thereby confining exotic matter to a localized region; and (ii) standard thin-shell wormholes generated by gluing two identical black hole spacetimes across a timelike hypersurface situated outside their event horizons. In both cases, the NEC violations are minimised and restricted to a finite region, improving the physical plausibility and traversability of the resulting configurations.