In one minute

Harold White and colleagues, analysing for a DARPA-funded project how energy density may be structured inside a Casimir cavity under the dynamic vacuum model, report an unexpected link to warp metrics. Worldline numerics applied to this cavity gave results qualitatively similar to a two-dimensional picture of the energy density the Alcubierre warp metric requires. A toy model with a 1 µm sphere centred in a 4 µm cylinder gave a three-dimensional Casimir energy density that correlates well with those requirements. This points to chip-scale experiments that could look for tiny signatures of a real, if humble, warp bubble.

Worldline numerics applied to custom Casimir geometry generates unanticipated intersection with Alcubierre warp metric