The fermionic double smeared null energy condition
Duarte Fragoso, Lihan Guo
SciPost Phys. Core 8, 045 (2025) · published 26 June 2025
- doi: 10.21468/SciPostPhysCore.8.2.045
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Abstract
Energy conditions are crucial for understanding why exotic phenomena such as traversable wormholes and closed timelike curves remain elusive. In this paper, we prove the Double Smeared Null Energy Condition (DSNEC) for the fermionic free theory in 4-dimensional flat Minkowski spacetime, extending previous work on the same energy condition for the bosonic case [J. R. Fliss and B. Freivogel, SciPost Phys. 12, 084 (2022); J. R. Fliss et al., SciPost Phys. 14, 024 (2023)] by adapting Fewster and Mistry's method [C. J. Fewster and B. Mistry, Phys. Rev. D 68, 105010 (2003)] to the energy-momentum tensor $T_{++}$. A notable difference from previous works lies in the presence of the $\gamma_0 \gamma_+$ matrix in $T_{++}$, causing a loss of symmetry. This challenge is addressed by making use of its square-root matrix. We provide explicit analytic results for the massless case as well as numerical insights for the mass-dependence of the bound in the case of Gaussian smearing.
Authors / Affiliations: mappings to Contributors and Organizations
See all Organizations.- 1 2 Duarte Pedro dos Reis Fragoso,
- 1 2 3 Lihan Guo
- 1 Universiteit van Amsterdam / University of Amsterdam [UvA]
- 2 Institute for Theoretical Physics Amsterdam [ITFA]
- 3 Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore / Catholic University of the Sacred Heart [UCSC]