Harold White and his team announce theoretical Alcubierre Warp Drive breakthrough

Worldline numerics applied to custom Casimir geometry generates unanticipated intersection with Alcubierre warp metric | The European Physical Journal C (EPJ C)

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Eur. Phys. J. C (2021) 81: 677
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09484-zRegular Article - Theoretical Physics

Worldline numerics applied to custom Casimir geometry generates unanticipated intersection with Alcubierre warp metric

Harold White, Jerry Vera, Arum Han, Alexander R. Bruccoleri and Jonathan MacArthur

a sonny@limitlessspace.org

Received: 17 May 2021
Accepted: 25 July 2021
Published online: 31 July 2021

Abstract

While conducting analysis related to a DARPA-funded project to evaluate possible structure of the energy density present in a Casimir cavity as predicted by the dynamic vacuum model, a micro/nano-scale structure has been discovered that predicts negative energy density distribution that closely matches requirements for the Alcubierre metric. The simplest notional geometry being analyzed as part of the DARPA-funded work consists of a standard parallel plate Casimir cavity equipped with pillars arrayed along the cavity mid-plane with the purpose of detecting a transient electric field arising from vacuum polarization conjectured to occur along the midplane of the cavity. An analytic technique called worldline numerics was adapted to numerically assess vacuum response to the custom Casimir cavity, and these numerical analysis results were observed to be qualitatively quite similar to a two-dimensional representation of energy density requirements for the Alcubierre warp metric. Subsequently, a toy model consisting of a 1  m diameter sphere centrally located in a 4  m diameter cylinder was analyzed to show a three-dimensional Casimir energy density that correlates well with the Alcubierre warp metric requirements. This qualitative correlation would suggest that chip-scale experiments might be explored to attempt to measure tiny signatures illustrative of the presence of the conjectured phenomenon: a real, albeit humble, warp bubble.
 
 NOTE: This has not yet been experimentally tested. The math works, though.

noice

I've been claiming for years now that the Casimir Effect is the proper way to get around the "negative energy density" requirement for a practical Alcubierre Warp Drive.

An interstellar spaceship? I wouldn't count on it.

Look at fusion power. Fusion is the energy source of the future (and always will be ).

A laboratory proof-of-concept demonstrator? That's much more likely.

hmm

Of course... if you don't know what the Casimir Effect is, this thread won't mean much to you.

That was like 15 years ago, White tackled that, wasn't it?

In fact, I have noticed lately they have been dropping the "Alcubierre" part, and just calling it a "White drive."

They've been at an impasse for more than a decade over the "negative energy density" required by the Alcubierre metric.