3
$\begingroup$

Is travel through stable macroscopic wormholes between remote points of spacetime going to be possible in a definitive theory of gravity, be it string theory or something beyond it?

Physicists level of understanding about the holographic principle and AdS/CFT correspondence has improved significantly and continues to evolve, as it is suggested by the current ongoing debate regarding black hole firewalls.

I understand that the semiclassical picture of wormholes cannot survive because string theory demands that the required positive energy conditions are satisfied, so nontrivial classical topologies are censored from geodesically-complete world lines, just like naked singularities. But i cannot help but wonder (and hence my reason to do this question) if all the thorny subject about information being conserved by unitarity, while at the same time, holography implying there is a connection between all the boundaries of the bulk spacetime (understanding as such the union of the cosmological horizon and all the black holes in its interior), could allow room for solutions where the infalling information in black holes survives by coming out, scrambled or otherwise, out of some other distant event horizon (behaving at times as a white hole, at others like a black hole)

| cite | improve this question | |
$\endgroup$
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ As this stands, it is incoherent and just a collection of random buzzwords. Can you please be more explicit and clear / provide some background information? $\endgroup$ – Chris Gerig Oct 23 '12 at 6:06
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ The question looks pretty clear to me. The last part sounds like some speculative suggestion regarding far-away horizons becoming connected as a single entity in order to facilitate travel. He wants to know if that is possible or allowed by the theory. My guess is that is not possible, but the string theorists should answer this $\endgroup$ – lurscher Oct 23 '12 at 12:22
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Here's one relevant reference: arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:0705.2768 $\endgroup$ – Matt Reece Oct 27 '12 at 0:25
  • $\begingroup$ thanks @MattReece, at page 14, what is the paradox they suggest arises between such wormholes and AdS/CFT? $\endgroup$ – user56771 Oct 27 '12 at 3:24
  • $\begingroup$ Nah @dimension10 and Chris Gerig, to me it seems not that bad ;-), maybe because I have read this TRF article which seems to be related to the issues asked about here. $\endgroup$ – Dilaton Jul 5 '13 at 13:46
2
$\begingroup$

Is travel through stable macroscopic wormholes between remote points of spacetime going to be possible in a definitive theory of gravity, be it string theory or something beyond it?

Extremely unlikely, and that's being generous. The non-locality of quantum gravity is going to be irrelevant at macroscopic scales. Any situation involving humans is going to be very well described by general relativity, so you can't sidestep the classical instability of wormholes by appealing to quantum fairie dust.

It is perhaps theoretically possible that microscopic wormholes would allow non-local transmission of information, but the energy budget required for that sort of thing involves numbers so mind-boggling that they're usually not seen outside of combinatorics. Imagine destroying a solar system to send a single bit, and you're lowballing it.

| cite | improve this answer | |
$\endgroup$
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ "so you can't sidestep the classical instability of wormholes by appealing to quantum fairie dust" we already sidestep a lot of classically expected results thanks to 'quantum fairie dust'. Most significant case is quantum superconductivity, which is clearly a macroscopic effect, and entirely due to 'quantum fairie dust' $\endgroup$ – diffeomorphism Feb 26 '15 at 18:47

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.