In 1966, the television series Star Trek captivated audiences with the idea of traveling at speeds faster than the speed of light. spaceship crew USS Enterprise He embarked on interstellar adventures with the ease of starting a car. This science fiction concept, which seemed unattainable at the time, planted a seed in the minds of many scientists.including the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre Moya. Alcubierre, fascinated by the possibility of making these trips a reality, embarked on research that decades later would result in one of the most innovative proposals in the field of theoretical physics: the “warp drive” or curvature drive.
In the 1990s, Alcubierre published research that surprised the scientific community. His proposal, known as the Alcubierre curvature drive, suggested a theoretical way to travel faster than light without violating the laws of physics. The central idea was to contract the space time in front of a spacecraft and expand it behind it, creating a “warp bubble” that would allow the spacecraft to move from point A to point B at arbitrarily fast speeds. To an outside observer, the ship would appear to be moving faster than light, although inside the bubble the passengers would not feel any acceleration.
Despite its revolutionary potential, the Alcubierre curvature drive had a fundamental problem: it depended on a type of energy called negative energy. This energy involves the use of exotic particles, a hypothetical form of matter that has not been observed in our universe. Exotic particles would have unusual properties, such as negative mass and opposition to gravity, but so far they only exist in mathematical terms. This reliance on negative energy has been a significant obstacle to the practical viability of Alcubierre’s proposed warp drive.
Recently, a team of researchers from the think tank Applied Physics, based in New York, has proposed an innovative solution to the “warp drive” problem. Led by Gianni Martire and Jared Fuchshave developed a system that uses positive energy instead of negative energy, respecting the known physical laws. His work, published last April in the magazine Classical and Quantum Gravitycould mark the beginning of a new era in interstellar travel.
Using positive energy eliminates the need for exotic particles, making the construction of a “curvature bubble” much more feasible. This bubble, formed by an envelope of regular but extremely dense matter, propels the spacecraft through the powerful gravity of the envelope, without the passengers feeling any acceleration. This advance is significant because it provides a more realistic basis for the future development of faster-than-light travel technologies.
Imagine a spherical structure that surrounds and encloses the space of a ship using an envelope of regular but incredibly dense matter. This bubble propels the ship using the powerful gravity of the envelope, but without causing acceleration to the passengers inside the ship. Gianni Martire explains that the density of the envelope and the pressure it exerts inside are carefully controlled to maintain the stability of the bubble.
Within their local spacetime environment, observers experience normal motion in time. Simultaneously, the bubble compresses spacetime in front of the ship and expands it behind, allowing the bubble and the contained ship to move extremely fast. Jared Fuchs compares the movement of matter on the walls of the bubble with the momentum generated by the movement of rolling balls, where it is the movement of matter on the walls that actually creates the propulsion effect for the passengers inside.
To model the complexity of the system, the Applied Physics team developed a computer program called Warp Factory. This toolkit It allows researchers to evaluate Einstein’s field equations and calculate the energy conditions necessary for various warp drive geometries. Warp Factory is available for free to anyone interested in experimenting with spacetime modeling of warp drives.
With this tool, the researchers were able to create a general model of a positive energy warp drive. A significant finding is that the amount of energy required by a curvature bubble depends on its shape; For example, a bubble that is flatter in the direction of travel needs less energy.
The physicist Erik Lentz, of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, praises this advance as an important milestone in warp drive research. Lentz, who works on dark matter detection and quantum information science, also conducts independent research on the theory of warp drives based on conventional physics. Although there are many practical obstacles to overcome, Lentz highlights the importance of this new model for exploring the possibilities of interstellar travel.
One of the most notable challenges is the coordination required to control curvature bubbles, as they involve enormous amounts of matter and energy to keep passengers safe and with a perception of time similar to that of the destination. Any mismatch could result in a loss of synchronization with time at the destination, further complicating interstellar travel.
Applied Physics’ New Positive Energy Model Still Faces significant challengess. For example, requires a mass equivalent to two Jupiter planets to generate the gravitational force necessary for a significant curvature effect. A feasible source for this mass has yet to be identified, although some suggest that dark matter could be an option, although it remains a mystery to scientists.
Additionally, although the current model allows for a stable curvature bubble, it only works at a constant speed. lScientists have yet to figure out how to design an initial acceleration and a mechanism to decelerate and stop the ship at the end of the journey.. This lack of ability to adjust speed is one of the main barriers to the practical development of warp drives.
Although we are still far from building an operational warp drive, this new positive energy model represents a significant advance over current space travel technology. Traveling at half the speed of light, for example, would allow us to reach Alpha Centauri in nine years, compared to the 75,000 years it would take our current fastest ship, the Voyager 1which travels at 61,000 kilometers per hour.
The main challenge lies in overcoming the limitation imposed by Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which states that the mass of a moving object increases infinitely as it approaches the speed of light, requiring an infinite amount of energy to maintain that speed. Solving this problem could involve advances in condensed matter physicswhich studies the forces between atoms and electrons in matter, and has already been fundamental for several current technologies, such as transistors and solid-state lasers.
