[Physics] Conservation of potential energy for a wormhole

energy-conservationexotic-mattergeneral-relativityspace-travelwormholes

So you managed to build a stable traversable wormhole. Somehow you managed to acquire the exotic negative-tension materials with sufficient densities to make it all work.

Now you place opening A of the wormhole deep inside a gravitational well, and the other opening B far outside that well.

What would a traveler approaching wormhole A experience?

A traveler that is stationary in regards to point A would have to expend a considerable amount of energy to reach excape velocity, leave the gravity well and reach point B trough normal space.

Conservation of energy implies that they would need the same minimum amount when going through the wormhole.

The distance they travel however is much shorter, and I cannot see how the required escape velocity can be the same. Do they therefore experience a stronger gravitational gradient along their journey?

Are they perhaps strongly repelled from opening A and for that reason have to expend the same amount of energy they would need to move out of the gravity well in a normal manner?

In the same vein, is a traveler approaching wormhole B strongly attracted towards it, so that they can gain the same amount of kinetic energy that they would get when traveling towards the gravity well in free fall from B to A trough normal space?

How does the spacetime around the two wormhole openings in different gravitational depths look like?

The wormhole itself will of course have a considerable mass of its own, and the exotic matter used to stabilize it will have its own weird gravitational effects, but let's assume that those are negligible compared to the effects of the giant gravity well that is near one of the wormhole openings.


Related questions:

  • This question deals with whether the law of conservation of energy is broken when an object that travels trough a wormhole disspears at one point an reapears at another

  • This question is very similar to mine, but does not consider gravitational wells aside from the wormhole itself.

Best Answer

Disclaimer: I'm not a GR expert, but this is how this question has been explained to me by other physicists before. If I got something wrong, please correct me.

The traveler does indeed not have to exert as much work to leave the gravity well via the wormhole compared to the normal route. They are not repelled from mouth A nor attracted to mouth B by any effect having to do with the gravity of the planet.

Conservation laws are preserved, however, by interaction with the wormhole mouths themselves. When the traveler enters mouth A and leaves mouth B, no work is required to raise their mass because mouth A appears to gain equal mass to the traveler, and mouth B loses it. As far as conservation laws are concerned, it's as if the traveler crashed into and merged with an asteroid in low orbit (mouth A), and then an identical copy of the traveler got assembled out of the mass of another asteroid (mouth B) and ejected in high orbit.

So, if you try to generate infinite energy by throwing something through the wormhole and then running a generator off it as it falls back down, your plans will be foiled by mouth A becoming steadily more massive while mouth B becomes steadily less massive, until mouth A collapses into a black hole.

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