The fell-heisenberg warp drive and the horizon problem

Abstract

The locality principle is respected by the special and general theory of relativity. Consequently, the speed of light is the maximum speed at which information can travel. However, by the Hubble-Lemaitre law, we know that two moving observers can separate at speeds greater than the speed of light. Furthermore, the theory of cosmic inflation also implies the superluminal movement of comoving observers in the first moments of our Universe [8]. With this physical motivation, Alcubierre [2] constructed a solution of general relativity that allows superluminal travels without violating causality. His solution inspired the general mathematical definition of warp drives given by Natario [22] and the solitonic behavior of Fell-Heisenberg [10]. In this thesis, we will focus on two questions: first, based on Natario’s definition, we study the “observer problem” in warp drives, and second, we establish constraints for gradient shift vectors to represent physical warp drives in the Fell-Heisenberg metric.