Existence of Vacuum Wormholes in Einsteinian Cubic Gravity

Abstract

Wormhole solutions in gravitational theories typically require exotic matter. Here we present a wormhole solution to the field equations of Einsteinian Cubic Gravity -- a phenomenological competitor to general relativity that includes terms cubic in the curvature -- that has no matter, exotic or otherwise. These purely gravitational wormhole geometries are asymptotically AdS but contain a geometric deficit at infinity. The deficit, interpreted as a global monopole, plays an essential role in our construction. We find that our wormhole solution satisfies traversablility criteria. We also find, for different parameters, a range of possible wormhole solutions.

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