Historical research guide · 0849 · 2017
Traversable wormholes via a double trace deformation
Ping Gao · Daniel Louis Jafferis · Aron C. Wall
In one minute
Ping Gao, Daniel Louis Jafferis and Aron Wall calculate how a quantum interaction can open a wormhole. Their starting point is an eternal BTZ black hole: a model with two spatial dimensions in anti-de Sitter spacetime, with two asymptotic regions joined by an initially non-traversable Einstein–Rosen bridge. They couple quantum systems at those boundaries. With the appropriate interaction sign, the resulting quantum stress changes the geometry so that a suitably early signal can cross the bridge. The energy averaged along its lightlike path falls below the relevant vacuum baseline, in a Casimir-like effect. This perturbative calculation preserves causality. The authors also suggest a quantum-teleportation interpretation, in which the boundary interaction is essential: entanglement alone does not send a message.
Connection
Chapter 17 connects quantum-field boundary conditions to traversable geometry. This calculation supplies a concrete interaction and stress tensor; its Casimir-like comparison links that mechanism to vacuum physics.
From the source
In the eternal BTZ/AdS model, an appropriately signed interaction between the two boundaries produces negative averaged null energy. Its perturbative gravitational backreaction makes the Einstein–Rosen bridge traversable.Abstract; §1
For positive coupling h and operator dimension 0 < Δ < 1, Eq. 3.18 gives negative integrated null energy. Suitably early signals can cross; this is not an indefinitely open passage.§3, Eq. 3.18; Fig. 3
The authors compare the effect to Casimir energy: coupling the boundaries makes the radial direction behave like a compact circle. It is not an ordinary parallel-plate experiment.§1; §5
The authors describe their construction as the first traversable wormhole shown to fit within a UV-complete gravity theory, using a relevant double-trace deformation of the boundary conformal field theory.§1
In this construction, the interaction fixes the boundaries’ relative time and does not permit a causality violation. The opening scales with coupling strength; the signal has a long transmission delay.§5, Eq. 5.1
The authors suggest interpreting the interacting wormhole as a gravitational description of quantum teleportation. Both entanglement and the additional boundary interaction are needed.§5
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP12(2017)151How to cite it
Ping Gao, Daniel Louis Jafferis, Aron C. Wall (2017) Traversable wormholes via a double trace deformation doi:10.1007/JHEP12(2017)151