I have read in several articles, such as https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0577907323000266 and https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.0771 that dense quark matter can stabilize wormholes. Why is it, that it would work, since the weak energy condition is not being violated? How is the NEC violated by dense quark matter in particular?
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1$\begingroup$ As far as I can tell (this is covered in Eric Poisson's YT course, youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaNkJORnlhZkgIyPFNxhJPIVewGckJCGr) this is 100% fantasy fiction. You apparently need "exotic matter" to reverse the focusing effect of gravitation, but you need "regular" gravitation to enter the wormhole int the first place. So, not only do we need "exotic matter", we need regular matter on the way in, then it needs to change into the exotic stuff on the way out. Really? $\endgroup$– m4r35n357Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 10:20
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$\begingroup$ Here is a link to Poisson's brief discussion about wormholes: youtu.be/… $\endgroup$– m4r35n357Commented Oct 27, 2023 at 14:54
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$\begingroup$ Thank you, however I still don’t understand how the dense quark matter is supposed to violate NEC. I edited the question in order to clarify $\endgroup$– PeterCommented Oct 27, 2023 at 16:16
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1$\begingroup$ Can't help with that I'm afraid, don't know anything about particle physics. Just pointing out a more fundamental conceptual problem. At least the question is now open again! $\endgroup$– m4r35n357Commented Oct 27, 2023 at 17:19
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1$\begingroup$ Thank you, however what I still do not understand is how the energy density can be decreased down to a negative value through the large coupling. $\endgroup$– PeterCommented Oct 28, 2023 at 21:18
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1 Answer
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These papers use the MIT Bag model, which treats the difference between the non-perturbative QCD vacuum from the perturbative vacuum inside of hadrons by a simple bag constant. For valance quarks that possess a mass near the bag constant's value (say, strange quarks), one can end up with a negative energy density inside of the quark bag / hadron.
The problem is the MIT Bag Model is overly simplistic, and more accurate ways of modelling what happens in strange matter (like QCD Lattice calculations) will probably not exhibit the weird negative energy densities.
I'd also note that having a ring of strange matter, as what a wormhole would require, is itself unphysical: nuclear matter adopts a spherical-like shape. Forming frames of strange matter is beyond any physics we know.
In short: it is due to the simplicity of the modelling and shouldn't be expected to obtain in reality.