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Wormholes, baby universes, and causality

Matt Visser*

  • Theoretical Division, T-8, Mail Stop B-285, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545

  • *Present address: Physics Department, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130-4899.

Phys. Rev. D 41, 1116 – Published 15 February, 1990

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.41.1116

Abstract

In this paper wormholes defined on a Minkowski signature manifold are considered, both at the classical and quantum levels. It is argued that causality in quantum gravity may best be imposed by restricting the functional integral to include only causal Lorentzian spacetimes. Subject to this assumption, one can put very tight constraints on the quantum behavior of wormholes, their cousins the baby universes, and topology-changing processes in general. Even though topology-changing processes are tightly constrained, this still allows very interesting geometrical (rather than topological) effects. In particular, the laboratory construction of baby universes is not prohibited provided that the "umbilical cord" is never cut. Methods for relaxing these causality constraints are also discussed.

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