Wormholes with low energy density

TL;DR

This paper explores the possibility of low energy density traversable wormholes within the framework of $f(Q)$ modified gravity, aiming to address their physical plausibility and stability.

Contribution

It introduces $f(Q)$ gravity as a novel approach to support low energy density wormholes, overcoming limitations of classical models.

Findings

$f(Q)$ gravity provides additional degrees of freedom for wormhole stability.

Supports the existence of low energy density wormholes.

Addresses challenges of macroscopic scale wormholes with low energy density.

Abstract

In spite of their speculative nature, traversable wormholes are a topic of interest that started with the Einstein-Rosen bridge in 1935 and became a major research area with the introduction of the Morris-Thorne wormhole in 1988. It is also become apparent in time that such wormholes are likely to be compact stellar objects, akin to neutron stars. Although widely discussed, wormholes having a low energy density may therefore not be massive enough to exist on a macroscopic scale. Important examples are wormholes based on a noncommutative-geometry background and wormholes supported by the negative energy density sourced by the Casimir effect. The main goal of this paper is to invoke $f(Q)$ modified gravity to provide the extra degrees of freedom to help overcome these obstacles.