Wormhole geometries in Einstein-aether theory

TL;DR

This paper explores traversable wormhole solutions in Einstein-aether theory, showing that certain parameter choices allow these wormholes to satisfy energy conditions, unlike in standard Einstein gravity.

Contribution

First analysis of wormhole geometries in Einstein-aether theory demonstrating energy condition satisfaction with specific parameter constraints.

Findings

Wormhole solutions exist for three classes of aether coupling constants.

Energy conditions can be satisfied at the throat and throughout the spacetime.

Energy condition constraints are more restrictive than previous theoretical and observational limits.

Abstract

We present the first analysis of traversable wormhole solutions within the framework of Einstein-aether theory. We show that the corresponding field equations admit three distinct wormhole geometries, obtained by adopting three different classes of combinations for the aether coupling constants. We examine the null and weak energy conditions for three types of wormhole shape functions. Our findings reveal that, in contrast to Einstein gravity, by choosing appropriate parameter values, wormhole geometries can satisfy the energy conditions at the wormhole throat. We also find that in one class, wormholes can satisfy the energy conditions not only at the wormhole throat but also throughout the entire spacetime. Furthermore, the requirement of energy condition satisfaction, imposes some constraints on the values of aether coupling constants. By comparing these constraints with those previously obtained from theoretical and observational analyses, we find that the satisfaction of energy conditions put more stringent limits on the allowed values of the aether couplings.