2025/12/19 by J. J. A. Rodal, Rodal, José · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.18008
openalex publication_date 2025/12/19 · openalex created_date 2025/12/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present the first fully explicit, continuous, analytically derived warp-drive spacetime within General Relativity whose shift-vector flow is kinematically irrotational. Building on Santiago et al. that scalar-potential, zero-vorticity warp fields are Hawking-Ellis Type I for unit lapse and flat spatial slices, we supply a closed-form scalar potential and smooth shift components with proper boundary behavior, together with a Cartan-tetrad analytic pipeline and high-precision eigenanalysis. Compared with the Alcubierre and Natário models (evaluated at identical parameters ρ, σ, v/c), our irrotational solution exhibits significantly reduced local NEC/WEC stress: its peak proper-energy deficit is reduced by a factor of ≈ 38 relative to Alcubierre and ≈ 2.6 × 103 relative to Natário, and its peak NEC violation is more than 60 × smaller than Natário. Crucially, the stress-energy is globally Hawking-Ellis Type I, with a well-defined timelike eigenvalue (proper energy density) everywhere. A fixed-smoothing vortical ablation confirms that this improvement is causally due to irrotational, curl-free kinematics rather than profile shaping: adding modest vorticity collapses the E+ / E- balance and drives large increases in the negative-energy magnitude E-. We quantify the negative-energy requirement via a slice-integrated (on Σt) negative-energy volume and tabulate global measures. A far-field extrapolation to R → ∞ yields tail-corrected totals |E+ - E-| / (E+ + E-) = 0.04%. Thus the net proper energy is consistent with zero to four decimal places (in fractional units). We also establish regularity at r=0 for the irrotational construction.