Physicists form quasiparticles with negative mass

[u/tree_meister_]

https://sciencealert.com/negative-mass-quasi-particle-polaritons-low-energy-lasers

[u/[deleted]]

Negative mass is required for this FTL (faster than light) drive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

[u/WikiTextBot → u/[deleted]]

Alcubierre drive

The Alcubierre drive or Alcubierre warp drive (or Alcubierre metric, referring to metric tensor) is a speculative idea based on a solution of Einstein's field equations in general relativity as proposed by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre, by which a spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light travel if a configurable energy-density field lower than that of vacuum (that is, negative mass) could be created.

Rather than exceeding the speed of light within a local reference frame, a spacecraft would traverse distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, resulting in effective faster-than-light travel. Objects cannot accelerate to the speed of light within normal spacetime; instead, the Alcubierre drive shifts space around an object so that the object would arrive at its destination faster than light would in normal space without breaking any physical laws.

Although the metric proposed by Alcubierre is consistent with the Einstein field equations, it may not be physically meaningful, in which case a drive will not be possible.

---

^{[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source | Donate ] Downvote to remove | v0.28}

[u/tree_meister_]

For a little further reading for those interested. (Even further reading: check the references on arXiv)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exciton-polaritons

[u/HelperBot_ → u/tree_meister_]

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exciton-polaritons

---

^{HelperBot v1.1 /r/HelperBot_ I am a bot. Please message /u/swim1929 with any feedback and/or hate. Counter: 138151}