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Questions tagged [warp-drives]

warp drives are generic conceptual space travel mechanisms that try to work around physical limits in the speed of propagation of light imposed by special relativity. Usually they resort to speculative science (exotic matter), or phenomena that are not yet well understood or is hard to make validation experiments (non-eternal rotating black holes)

16 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
5 votes
0 answers
82 views

Violations of the Achronal averaged null energy condition

Many energy conditions have been shown to be violated in the past in semiclassical gravity, for instance when considering Klein-Gordon quantum scalar fields. Victims include the WEC (Weak Energy ...
Rexcirus's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
309 views

How do we derive force/acceleration vectors from Einstein's field equations?

I'm new here and I don't have any formal experience in physics beyond A-level. I've been exploring an idea for a space sim game someone else is developing in which propulsion of a spacecraft is ...
Tagc's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
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The center of energy of a closed system maintains constant velocity in the vacuum of space. How can a warp drive overcome this rule?

In the following paper Introducing Physical Warp Drives by Alexey Bobrick, Gianni Martire they state 5.2. Constructing warp drives: Warp drives, being inertially moving shells of normal or exotic ...
Chahé Adourian's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

Could Space Travel be achieved using a very strong magnetic field to warp space?

An Alcubierre Warp Drive could theoretically achieve faster than light space travel but requires exotic matter or negative energy to compress space in front of the spaceship and expand space behind it....
user23960's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
61 views

Killing Vectors in The Alcubierre Metric

According to this article about the Alcubierre metric, the metric can be transformed in a way that results in "spherical symmetry" about the x-axis. I have to assume they meant to say ...
user345249's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
618 views

What would a Natario Warp Drive look like, outside & inside the warp bubble?

Within a Natario Warp Metric, all mass in front of the ship is pushed outwards by it's negative energy density, this means no light would interact with the front of the ship at all. And since the ...
MrKred's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
128 views

Approach for calculating Alcubierre energy function?

NOTE: I know that the Alcubierre drive is on shaky ground and I'm not asking about its practicality or physical feasibility. I'm also not looking for answers like, "It's sci-fi so you can just make it ...
Carmenifold's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
79 views

Question about literature of Alcubierre's drive

In the last words of the prepaper*, Mr Alcubierre says: As a final comment, I will just mention the fact that even though the spacetime described by the metric (8) is globally hyperbolic, and ...
1 vote
1 answer
115 views

Could Gott's Cosmic String Time Machine hypothetically be used as a poor man's Alcubierre drive?

I have read much speculation about Gott's theoretical use of cosmic strings for time travel, but if the colliding cosmic strings accelerated the spacecraft faster than light, as Gott theorizes, could ...
Ben Warner's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
135 views

How would an Alcubierre warp bubble be affected by external gravitational fields (e.g. black holes)?

Consider a spaceship inside an Alcubierre warp bubble traveling in a straight trajectory. As it travels, it passes near a black hole (for the sake of argument, we'll say it's near the event horizon of ...
ETL's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
176 views

Warping Space Time By Focusing on Getting Smaller Rather Than More Energy?

So all energy/mater warps space-time, right? However, whenever we talk about the human manipulation of space-time it is a far-off goal requiring nothing short of tremendous amounts of energy and ...
lwadz88's user avatar
  • 29
1 vote
2 answers
304 views

Minimum amount of negative energy required in warp drive spacetimes

In the pioneering work of Alcubierre, to power a warp drive-like geometry it is necessary to employ an amount of negative energy larger (in absolute value) than the whole observable universe mass. A ...
Rexcirus's user avatar
  • 4,963
1 vote
1 answer
120 views

Generalising a finding in Kaluza-Klein theory to extra spatial dimensions in super string theory a correct method?

As a disclaimer I am an A-level student. I have been doing a research project in which I am looking at manipulating space-time through the ideas provided by superstring theories. I stumbled upon the ...
J.R.Green's user avatar
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0 answers
44 views

Proper spacelike distance in Alcubierre manifold

How do I find the proper spacelike $x$-coordinate on a constant $t$ hypersurface in the two dimensional Alcubierre manifold? The metric is given by $$\mathrm{d}s^2=(v^2f^2-1)\mathrm{d}t^2-2vf\mathrm{d}...
user345249's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
1k views

The effect of multiple Alcubierre rings

In all of the descriptions and visualizations I've ever seen of the Alcubierre drive but one, it takes the form of a single ring or toroid surrounding a spherical volume of flat space. The exception ...
AdamHovorka's user avatar

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