WORMHOLES

Wormholes are theoretical cosmic tunnels through space-time that create shortcuts for long journeys across the universe or to a different universe altogether. They have entered modern physics soon after the discovery of black holes. While there is increasing evidence of astrophysical black holes, the traversable wormholes remain an interesting possibility. These wormholes could theoretically exist in four space-time dimensions. According to some calculations space-time could be bent and curved without without massive objects. In this scenario, a wormhole would be an extremely curved region in space-time that resembles two interconnected funnels and connects two distant points in space like a tunnel. From a mathematical perspective such a shortcut would be possible, but no one has ever observed a real wormhole. Moreover, such a wormhole could be unstable. If for example a spaceship were to travel into one, it might instantly collapse into a black hole. The connection the wormhole provided to other places in the universe would be cut off. Previous models suggested that the only way to keep the wormhole open is with an exotic form of matter that has a negative mass, known as antimatter. In a new study researchers demonstrated the wormholes could be traversable without the needed antimatter. They combined elements of relativity theory with elements of quantum theory and classical electrodynamics theory. In their model they considered certain elementary particles such as electrons and their electric charge as the matter that is to pass through the wormhole, provided that the ratio between the electric charge and the mass of the wormhole exceeds a certain limit. The example of a wormhole would have to be further refined to find out whether such exotic structures could actually exist. For human travel, the wormhole would have to be large, which requires physics beyond the Standard Model. For astronauts going through the wormhole, it would take only one second of their time to travel a 10,000 light-year distance. And all this with no use of fuel, since the gravity accelerates and decelerates the spaceship.