https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10275-3
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Chronology protection implementation in analogue gravity
1
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía, 18008, Granada, Spain
2
Department of Cell Biology and Histology, Faculty of Medicine and Nursing, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Barrio Sarriena S/N, 48940, Leioa, Spain
3
Department of Financial and Actuarial Economics and Statistics, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Campus Somosaguas s/n, 28223, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain
Received:
31
January
2022
Accepted:
27
March
2022
Published online:
6
April
2022
Analogue gravity systems offer many insights into gravitational phenomena, both at the classical and at the semiclassical level. The existence of an underlying Minkowskian structure (or Galilean in the non-relativistic limit) in the laboratory has been argued to directly forbid the simulation of geometries with Closed Timelike Curves (CTCs) within analogue systems. We will show that this is not strictly the case. In principle, it is possible to simulate spacetimes with CTCs whenever this does not entail the presence of a chronological horizon separating regions with CTCs from regions that do not have CTCs. We find an Analogue-gravity Chronology protection mechanism very similar in spirit to Hawking’s Chronology Protection hypothesis. We identify the universal behaviour of analogue systems near the formation of such horizons and discuss the further implications that this analysis has from an emergent gravity perspective. Furthermore, we build explicit geometries containing CTCs, for instance spacetimes constructed from two warp-drive configurations, that might be useful for future analysis, both from a theoretical and an experimental point of view.
© The Author(s) 2022
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