Speed Limits in General Relativity

Abstract

Some standard results on the initial value problem of general relativity in matter are reviewed. These results are applied first to show that in a well defined sense, finite perturbations in the gravitational field travel no faster than light, and second to show that it is impossible to construct a warp drive as considered by Alcubierre (1994) in the absence of exotic matter.

7 pages; AMS-LaTeX; accepted for publication by Classical and Quantum Gravity

References in corpus (2)

• The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity
• The unphysical nature of "Warp Drive"

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• Black Holes, Warp Drives, and Energy Conditions