Can Dirac Fields Source Traversable Wormholes?

Traversable wormholes have captivated both the public and theoretical physicists since their inception. While wormhole geometries are permissible within the framework of general relativity, they require matter with "negative energy" to sustain them—specifically, matter that violates the null energy condition on a sufficiently large scale. However, typical classical matter does not possess the necessary properties to support such geometries.

The question remains open as to whether a Dirac field can generate sufficient violations of the null energy condition to source a traversable wormhole. In this talk, I will present recent progress in exploring this possibility for positive-frequency Dirac fields within static, spherically symmetric wormhole spacetimes. I will investigate whether solutions to the Dirac equation can provide the "negative energy" needed to make static, spherically symmetric wormholes viable without resorting to nonphysical exotic matter.