Quantum Inequality Restrictions on Negative Energy Densities in Curved Spacetimes

TL;DR

This paper derives quantum inequalities constraining negative energy densities in curved spacetimes, showing they limit the feasibility of exotic phenomena like warp drives by requiring enormous amounts of negative energy.

Contribution

It provides a general form of quantum inequalities for scalar and electromagnetic fields in static curved spacetimes, extending previous flat space results and applying them to various specific geometries.

Findings

Quantum inequalities reduce to flat space form in short sampling time limit.

Negative energy constraints in warp drive spacetime exceed the universe's mass.

Exact quantum inequalities are derived for multiple static curved spacetimes.

Abstract

In quantum field theory, there exist states in which the expectation value of the energy density for a quantized field is negative. These negative energy densities lead to many problems. Although quantum field theory introduces negative energies, it also provides constraints in the form of quantum inequalities (QI's). These uncertainty principle-type relations limit the magnitude and duration of any negative energy. We derive a general form of the QI on the energy density for both the quantized scalar and electromagnetic fields in static curved spacetimes. In the case of the scalar field, the QI can be written as the Euclidean wave operator acting on the Euclidean Green's function. Additionally, a small distance expansion on the Green's function is used to derive the QI in the short sampling time limit. It is found that the QI in this limit reduces to the flat space form with subdominant correction terms which depend on the spacetime geometry. Several example spacetimes are studied in which exact forms of the QI's can be found. These include the three- and four-dimensional static Robertson-Walker spacetimes, flat space with perfectly reflecting mirrors, Rindler and static de Sitter space, and the spacetime outside a black hole. Finally, the application of the quantum inequalities to the Alcubierre warp drive spacetime leads to strict constraints on the thickness of the negative energy region needed to maintain the warp drive. Under these constraints, we discover that the total negative energy required exceeds the total mass of the visible universe by a hundred billion times.