Einstein-Dirac-Maxwell wormholes in quantum field theory

Charged Dirac fields minimally coupled to gravity have spherically symmetric wormhole solutions known as Einstein-Dirac-Maxwell (EDM) wormholes. EDM wormholes do not make use of exotic matter and exist in asymptotically flat general relativity. We construct static spherically symmetric EDM wormhole configurations in quantum field theory using semiclassical approximations for gravity and the electromagnetic field. Our framework is able to describe a broader class of EDM wormholes than previously considered and, being constructed in quantum field theory, puts EDM wormholes on firmer theoretical ground.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; v2: typos correcte

Einstein-Dirac in semiclassical gravity

We study the Dirac equation minimally coupled to general relativity using quantum field theory and the semiclassical gravity approximation. Previous studies of the Einstein-Dirac system did not quantize the Dirac field and required multiple independent Dirac fields to preserve spherical symmetry. We canonically quantize a single Dirac field in a static spherically symmetric curved spacetime background. Using the semiclassical gravity approximation, in which the Einstein field equations are sourced by the expectation value of the stress-energy-momentum tensor, we derive a system of equations whose solutions describe static spherically symmetric self-gravitating configurations of identical quantum spin-1/2 particles. We self-consistently solve these equations and present example configurations. Although limiting cases of our semiclassical system of equations reproduce the multi-field system of equations found in the literature, our system of equations is derived from the excitations of a single quantum field.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

Retrofitting Models of Inflation

I use the method of retrofitting, developed by Dine, Feng and Silverstein, to generate the scale of inflation dynamically, allowing it to be naturally small. This is a general procedure that may be performed on existing models of supersymmetric inflation. I illustrate this idea on two such models, one an example of F-term inflation and the other an example of D-term inflation.Comment: 11 page