Teleportation Physics Study
Eric W. Davis
Summary and citation · read the original at the source
In one page
The Air Force Research Laboratory's propulsion directorate commissioned Eric Davis to answer a question laboratories rarely put on paper: what does physics actually say about getting an object from here to there without carrying it across the space in between? Davis separates the question into five kinds. Science-fiction teleportation he sets aside at once. Quantum teleportation, the entanglement protocol that genuinely works on the bench, moves a quantum state rather than an object. Psychic and extra-dimensional teleportation each get their own chapter. The kind he takes furthest is what he names vm-teleportation — engineering the vacuum or the spacetime metric — and he proposes two routes to it. The first is a traversable wormhole with a flat-face throat, a stargate rather than the spherical mouth of the Morris and Thorne solution. The second is the polarizable-vacuum picture, where changing the vacuum's dielectric constant changes the metric. Both need negative energy, so the report closes with a catalogue of laboratory ways to make it.
Why it matters hereThis is the study that put spacetime metric engineering on Air Force letterhead, and chapter 4 works from it directly — the wormhole mathematics, the negative-energy budget and the honest note that the mathematics is not yet the machine. It is also the hinge to chapter 6, because the negative energy the geometry needs is the same vacuum energy the Casimir devices already touch.
What it claims
01Davis identifies and proposes two physics models for teleportation, both of which come down to engineering the vacuum: manipulating the general-relativistic spacetime metric, and altering the spacetime vacuum's electromagnetic zero-point-fluctuation parameters.Abstract; Section 2.0
Designed, not yet built02A comprehensive literature search turned up no prior work applying the Einstein field equation to teleportation, so Davis offers his own solution: a traversable wormhole with a flat-face throat rather than the spherically symmetric throat of the Morris and Thorne wormhole — what he calls a true stargate.Section 2.1, p. 3
Designed, not yet built03The second and practically equivalent route is the polarizable-vacuum representation of general relativity, in which the vacuum's dielectric constant K sets the local metric; Davis judges the model mature enough for experimental exploration while noting it needs further theoretical work for this application.Sections 2.2 and 2.3, pp. 11–26
Designed, not yet built04Extensive theoretical and, more importantly, experimental research already shows the vacuum can be physically modified so that its zero-point energy is exploited — the Casimir effect being the easiest and best-known laboratory route to negative energy, with the energy density inside a Casimir cavity negative and the resulting attraction measured.Section 2.3, p. 26
Settled physics05The report catalogues concrete laboratory routes to negative energy: the Casimir effect, a mirror moving with increasing acceleration, optically squeezed laser light with its negative and positive pulses separated by rapidly rotating mirrors, and gravitationally squeezed vacuum energy.Section 2.3, pp. 27–28
Designed, not yet built06Most existing vacuum-engineering work sits at energy densities far too low for this purpose, but ultrahigh-intensity tabletop lasers — made possible by chirped pulse amplification and now reaching 10²⁵ to 10³⁰ watts per square centimetre — probe QED vacuum physics directly and are the ideal instrument for exploring both vm-teleportation concepts.Section 2.3, pp. 26–27
What to watch
The way in
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA425545Special report AFRL-PR-ED-TR-2003-0034, prepared by Warp Drive Metrics for the Air Force Research Laboratory, Space and Missile Propulsion Division, under contract F04611-99-C-0025; project manager Franklin B. Mead, Jr. Marked ‘approved for public release; distribution unlimited’ and free to read at the Defense Technical Information Center under accession ADA425545.
How to cite it
Eric W. Davis (2004) Teleportation Physics Study. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA425545
Where it sits in the curriculum
The metric, warp drives and wormholesInertia and gravity from the vacuumEnergy from the vacuum