Twin Paradox in de Sitter Spacetime

Abstract

The "twin paradox" of special relativity offers the possibility to make interstellar flights within a lifetime. For very long journeys with velocities close to the speed of light, however, we have to take into account the expansion of the universe. Inspired by the work of Rindler on hyperbolic motion in curved spacetime, we study the worldline of a uniformly accelerated observer in de Sitter spacetime and the communication between the traveling observer and an observer at rest.

15 pages, 19 figures, 5 tables

References in corpus (8)

• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Data Processing, Sky Maps, and Basic Results
• Les Houches Lectures on De Sitter Space
• Shedding New Light on the 3C 273 Jet with the Spitzer Space Telescope
• Uniformly accelerating black holes in a de Sitter universe
• Accelerated sources in de Sitter spacetime and the insufficiency of retarded fields
• The Long-Term Future of Space Travel
• The Adventures of the Rocketeer: Accelerated Motion Under the Influence of Expanding Space
• Penrose-Carter diagram for an uniformly accelerated observer

Cited by in corpus (6)

• The local and global geometrical aspects of the twin paradox in static spacetimes: I. Three spherically symmetric spacetimes
• Effect of tidal curvature on dynamics of accelerated probes
• The local and global geometrical aspects of the twin paradox in static spacetimes: II. Reissner--Nordström and ultrastatic metrics
• Acceleration in de Sitter spacetimes
• Do moving clocks slow down?
• Interplay between the small and the large scale structure of spacetime