Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Symposium Program
- Papers from both Volumes Classified by Subject
- Preface
- Charles W. Misner: Insight and Discovery
- Remarks Concerning the Geometries of Gravity and Gauge Fields
- Gravity and Unification of Fundamental Interactions
- Minisuperspaces: Symmetries and Quantization
- Quantum Cosmology
- A Pictorial History of some Gravitational Instantons
- No Time Machines from Lightlike Sources in 2+1 Gravity
- Inhomogeneity and Anisotropy Generation in FRW Cosmologies
- Misner, Kinks and Black Holes
- The Quantum Mechanics of Closed Systems
- Cosmological Vacuum Phase Transitions
- Minisuperspace as a Quantum Open System
- Ricci Flow on Minisuperspaces and the Geometry-Topology Problem
- Classical and Quantum Dynamics of Black Hole Interiors
- Matter Time in Canonical Quantum Gravity
- The Isotropy and Homogeneity of the Universe
- Recent Advances in ADM Reduction
- Some Progress in Classical Canonical Gravity
- Harmonic Map Formulation of Colliding Electrovac Plane Waves
- Geometry, the Renormalization Group and Gravity
- An Example of Indeterminacy in the Time-Development of “Already Unified Field Theory”: A Collision between Electomagnetic Plane Waves
- Non-static Metrics of Hiscock-Gott Type
- Non-Standard Phase Space Variables, Quantization and Path-Integrals, or Little Ado about Much
- The Present Status of the Decaying Neutrino Theory
- Exploiting the Computer to Investigate Black Holes and Cosmic Censorship
- Misner Space as a Prototype for Almost Any Pathology
- Relativity and Rotation
- The First Law of Black Hole Mechanics
- Gravitational Radiation Antenna Observations
- The Back-Reaction is Never Negligible: Entropy of Black Holes and Radiation
- Toward a Thesis Topic
- Charles Misner: A Celebration of Memories
- Curriculum Vitae of C. W. Misner
- Ph. D. Theses supervised by C. W. Misner
- List of Publications of C. W. Misner
Misner Space as a Prototype for Almost Any Pathology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Symposium Program
- Papers from both Volumes Classified by Subject
- Preface
- Charles W. Misner: Insight and Discovery
- Remarks Concerning the Geometries of Gravity and Gauge Fields
- Gravity and Unification of Fundamental Interactions
- Minisuperspaces: Symmetries and Quantization
- Quantum Cosmology
- A Pictorial History of some Gravitational Instantons
- No Time Machines from Lightlike Sources in 2+1 Gravity
- Inhomogeneity and Anisotropy Generation in FRW Cosmologies
- Misner, Kinks and Black Holes
- The Quantum Mechanics of Closed Systems
- Cosmological Vacuum Phase Transitions
- Minisuperspace as a Quantum Open System
- Ricci Flow on Minisuperspaces and the Geometry-Topology Problem
- Classical and Quantum Dynamics of Black Hole Interiors
- Matter Time in Canonical Quantum Gravity
- The Isotropy and Homogeneity of the Universe
- Recent Advances in ADM Reduction
- Some Progress in Classical Canonical Gravity
- Harmonic Map Formulation of Colliding Electrovac Plane Waves
- Geometry, the Renormalization Group and Gravity
- An Example of Indeterminacy in the Time-Development of “Already Unified Field Theory”: A Collision between Electomagnetic Plane Waves
- Non-static Metrics of Hiscock-Gott Type
- Non-Standard Phase Space Variables, Quantization and Path-Integrals, or Little Ado about Much
- The Present Status of the Decaying Neutrino Theory
- Exploiting the Computer to Investigate Black Holes and Cosmic Censorship
- Misner Space as a Prototype for Almost Any Pathology
- Relativity and Rotation
- The First Law of Black Hole Mechanics
- Gravitational Radiation Antenna Observations
- The Back-Reaction is Never Negligible: Entropy of Black Holes and Radiation
- Toward a Thesis Topic
- Charles Misner: A Celebration of Memories
- Curriculum Vitae of C. W. Misner
- Ph. D. Theses supervised by C. W. Misner
- List of Publications of C. W. Misner
Summary
Abstract
Misner space (i.e. Minkowski spacetime with identification under a boost) is a remarkably rich prototype for a variety of pathologies in the structure of spacetime—some of which may actually occur in the real Universe. The following examples are discussed in some detail: traversable wormholes, violation of the averaged null energy condition, chronology horizons (both compactly and noncompactly generated) at which closed timelike curves are created, classical and quantum instabilities of chronology horizons, and chronology protection.
Introduction
In August 1965, at the Fourth Summer Seminar on Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, Charles Misner gave a lecture titled “Taub-NUT space as a counterexample to almost anything” [Mis67]. Near the end of his lecture, Misner introduced an exceedingly simple spacetime that shares some of Taub-NUT's pathological properties. This spacetime has come to be called Misner space.
Twenty-three years later, when I became intrigued by the question of whether the laws of physics forbid traversable wormholes and closed timelike curves, and if so, by what physical mechanism the laws prevent them from arising, Bob Wald and Robert Geroch reminded me of Misner space and its relevance to these issues. Since then, I and others probing these issues have found Misner space and its variations to be fertile testing grounds and powerful computational tools.
In this paper, I shall describe the remarkable pathologies that Misner space encompasses, and what we have learned about wormholes and closed timelike curves with the aid of Misner space. My discussion will be quite elementary, requiring little more than a basic understanding of special relativity.
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- Directions in General RelativityProceedings of the 1993 International Symposium, Maryland: Papers in Honor of Charles Misner, pp. 333 - 346Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
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