Jul 04, 2024 13:00:00

Scientists suggest that observing gravitational waves could detect alien spacecraft's 'warp drive'

Warp drives, which bend space-time to travel faster than light, are a staple of science fiction, but they are also said to be theoretically

possible , and an extraterrestrial civilization with technology far more advanced than that of humans may have succeeded in developing them. A paper on how to observe space travel with such warp drives has been published.

[2406.02466] What no one has seen before: gravitational waveforms from warp drive collapse
https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.02466

Alien 'warp drives' may leave telltale signals in the fabric of space-time, new paper claims | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/alien-warp-drives-may-leave-telltale-signals-in-the-fabric-of-space-time-new-paper-claims

The most popular idea for a warp drive is the ' Alcubierre Drive ' invented by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. This technology is based on the idea of wrapping a spaceship in a space-time bubble called a warp bubble, compressing the space in front while expanding the space behind, allowing the spaceship and the space to travel faster than the speed of light.

In an unpeer-reviewed paper published on the preprint server arXiv on June 4, 2024, the researchers propose that 'warp bubbles emit ripples in space-time called gravitational waves, which could be used to indicate the use of warp drive.'

'Anything that moves irregularly potentially generates gravitational waves,' said lead author Katie Clough, a theoretical physicist at Queen Mary, University of London. 'If someone runs in a circle with a friend, they will also generate gravitational waves - except they will be very small.'

Clough and his team say that a ship traveling in warp drive doesn't emit detectable gravitational waves, but if the warp bubble that's created when entering and exiting warp breaks down after the warp phase, a phenomenon the team calls 'containment failure,' which produces unusual gravitational waves.

When the warp bubble collapses,

the exotic matter contained in the bubble's walls is scattered and the curvature of space-time that formed the walls is dispersed, which leads to the generation of 'powerful gravitational waves' with specific wavelengths, Clough said.

Humanity already has the technology to observe gravitational waves, such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which it uses to observe astronomical phenomena such as the collision of black holes. However, the gravitational waves emitted by warp drives are completely different from those emitted by such phenomena, so in order to capture the warp drive of an extraterrestrial civilization, we must patiently observe the universe by changing the wavelength we detect.

'We won't know if we'll see a signal until we see it,' Clough told science news site Live Science. 'I have to be skeptical that we'll see anything, but I think it's definitely worth a try.'