Null Raychaudhuri Equation and the Impossibility of Traversable Wormholes in Unimodular Gravity
Abstract
We formulate the traversability of wormhole throats as a local and covariant null defocusing condition derived from the Raychaudhuri equation. Since unimodular gravity preserves the local geometric structure of spacetime, the null focusing properties of geodesic congruences are unchanged with respect to general relativity. We show that any genuinely traversable wormhole in unimodular gravity necessarily violates the null energy condition, establishing a local no--go theorem for wormholes supported by ordinary matter in this framework.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
Relativity and Gravitational Theory
Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories
Publication details
- Journal / source
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Publication date
- 31 January 2026
- Document type
- Preprint