'Warp drives' may actually be possible someday, new study suggests

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"By demonstrating a first-of-its-kind model, we've shown that warp drives might not be relegated to science fiction."

an illustration of stars as seen from a spacecraft moving at high speed; the stars appear as white trails
Artist's conception of what moving at the speed of light might look like. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

A new study provides some theoretical underpinning to warp drives, suggesting that the superfast propulsion tech may not forever elude humanity.

Sci-fi fans — especially "Star Trek" devotees — are familiar with warp drives. These hypothetical engines manipulate the fabric of space-time itself, compressing the stuff in front of a spaceship and expanding it behind. This creates a "warp bubble" that allows a craft to travel at incredible velocities — in some imaginings, many times faster than the speed of light.

In 1994, Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre published a groundbreaking paper that laid out how a real-life warp drive could work. This exciting development came with a major caveat, however: The proposed "Alcubierre drive" required negative energy, an exotic substance that may or may not exist (or, perhaps, the harnessing of dark energy, the mysterious force that seems to be causing the universe's accelerated expansion). 

Related: Warp drive and 'Star Trek': The physics of future space travel

Alcubierre published his idea in Classical and Quantum Gravity. Now, a new paper in the same journal suggests that a warp drive may not require exotic negative energy after all.

"This study changes the conversation about warp drives," lead author Jared Fuchs, of the University of Alabama, Huntsville and the research think tank Applied Physics, said in a statement. "By demonstrating a first-of-its-kind model, we've shown that warp drives might not be relegated to science fiction."

The team's model uses "a sophisticated blend of traditional and novel gravitational techniques to create a warp bubble that can transport objects at high speeds within the bounds of known physics," according to the statement. 

Understanding that model is probably beyond most of us; the paper's abstract, for example, says that the solution "involves combining a stable matter shell with a shift vector distribution that closely matches well-known warp drive solutions such as the Alcubierre metric."

The proposed engine could not achieve faster-than-light travel, though it could come close; the statement mentions "high but subluminal speeds." 

RELATED STORIES:

— How 'Star Trek' technology works (infographic)

— Warp speed: The hype of hyperspace

— What is dark energy?

This is a single modeling study, so don't get too excited. Even if other research teams confirm that the math reported in the new study checks out, we're still very far from being able to build an actual warp drive.

Fuchs and his team admit as much, stressing that their work could end up being a stepping stone on the long road to efficient interstellar flight. 

"While we're not yet preparing for interstellar voyages, this research heralds a new era of possibilities," Gianni Martire, CEO of Applied Physics, said in the same statement. "We're continuing to make steady progress as humanity embarks on the Warp Age."

The team's study was published online on April 29. You can find it here, though all but the abstract is behind a paywall; a free preprint version is available via arXiv.org.

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • MikeEz
    I would be interested in Dr. Alcubierre and Dr. Whites' responses.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    It uses standard physics and does not allow FTL travel, according to the article. What's the point?
    Reply
  • Questioner
    I think what they are saying is it creates an independent frame of reference. That it is dislodged from standard spatial continuity.
    That would be the first step to superluminal Alcubierri methodology.
    It also might evade luminal proximate collisions with space detrimous.
    But that's just my take.
    Reply
  • Pogo
    We’ve been launching stuff beyond Earth’s atmosphere for 67 years now and haven’t gotten beyond 0.064c thus far. This warp thing is still only one team’s theory. It’ll likely be generations before we get even a subatomic particle into this warp speed thing, if ever. If it ever does become practical, it could be used to send small probes to local stars in a reasonable timeline. Anything manned will not likely be practical. The article doesn’t mention if warp drive actually negates relativistic effects.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    All of the theories that would have us go FTL are based on solutions to Einstein's field equations. That they solve the equations does not necessarily mean they can exist in reality. Here is an example: The area of a square is given by x^2. Two negative numbers can solve the equation just as well as two positive numbers. But there is no such thing as negative length. Headline: "Scientists find solution to area problem that involves negative length, thus it must exist".

    Another reason we can't go FTL. If one goes FTL, one must necessarily pass through c. At that point, the item would require all of the mass in the universe be converted into its kinetic energy. In other words: "You can't get there from here".
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    billslugg said:
    It uses standard physics and does not allow FTL travel, according to the article. What's the point?
    The point would be that even 1/2 c would be a game changer for travel to the nearest stars, compared to what we think is possible with the technology we have now. Especially for robotic probes, which would send data back at c.

    But, as you and they both said, just getting the math to work does not mean we have any idea how to create a machine that will implement that math.

    On the other hand, if what we currently understand about physics is really only 5% of what makes up the universe, who can say what we would be able to do if we ever get the knowledge about what "dark matter" and "dark energy" really are.

    Just because GRT currently uses a scalar for lambda doesn't mean that a more complete set of field equations would not expand that to a tensor or a whole matrix of currently unknown phenomena.

    Just like we can't expect all mathematical solutions to be real, we also cannot be sure that current equations are complete representations of reality. In fact, there are plenty of suggestions that our current equations are not complete.
    Reply
  • billslugg
    Valid points. When they actually come up with some of the exotic matter they need, then I'll get on board.
    Reply
  • Mizagorn
    Pogo said:
    The article doesn’t mention if warp drive actually negates relativistic effects.
    That was my first thought. You're part of the crew. You get paid by the hour and you're on the clock. Do you go by the onboard clock or the one back at the office? 🤔
    Reply
  • davidwebb955
    Mizagorn said:
    That was my first thought. You're part of the crew. You get paid by the hour and you're on the clock. Do you go by the onboard clock or the one back at the office? 🤔
    Warp drives work by compressing the space in front of you and expanding that behind you. Hence your speed through space is either zero or pretty close to zero and thus the crew will not experience any time dilation effects.
    Reply
  • davidwebb955
    Admin said:
    A new study provides some theoretical underpinning to sci-fi warp drives, suggesting that the superfast propulsion tech may not forever elude humanity.

    Warp drives' may actually be possible someday, new study suggests : Read more
    This isn't the first positive energy warp drive solution. Erik Lentz published a paper in the same publication in 2021 proposing a soliton warp drive solution which did away with the need for negative energy.
    Reply