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I've been looking a lot at Closed Timelike Curves, and how if a theory allows for these curves it doesn't respect causality. I understand that about the curves themselves (Grandfather Paradox), but can't seem to fathom how a theory would allow for such structures, since they seem to be "geometrically" impossible in a spacetime.

To my understanding, CTC are simply worldlines that loop back on themselves, and are therefore closed. The problem comes in when I actually try to picture a CLOSED worldline: If I start at a point in Minkowski Spacespacetime and draw any closed curve, I end up always having a portion of it be spacelike, and therefore the curve is never fully timelike. Meaning It's impossible to draw a CTC.

So my question is, how can a theory allow for such worldlines, since the fundamental principles behind the geometry of spacetime simply prohibit it?

Qmechanic
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Disousa
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  • Actually, the math shows that it is possible to have a curved Minkowski space with a continuous bijection to $R^4$ and a closed timelike curve. Maybe somebody could write an answer that discusses that. I don't want to write that type of answer myself because I'm afraid it will end up a low quality answer. – Timothy Apr 21 '18 at 23:07

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In Special Relativity CTCs can't exist (or at least I don't think so) but General Relativity has solutions that include CTCs. The best known is probably Gödel's solution for a rotating universe. The Alcubierre drive could also be used to construct CTCs, as could any FTL mechanism. Also see the Tipler cylinder, and probably many other examples I can't remember.

However, none of these examples of CTCs are realistic. In his paper on the Chronology Protection Conjecture Hawking proved that closed timelike curves cannot be created in a finite system without using exotic matter. The Gödel universe gets round this because it's infinite, while other cunning ideas like the Alcubierre drive require exotic matter.

Now, as far as we know the universe isn't rotating, and exotic matter doesn't exist. So (I guess) most physicists don't believe that time travel is possible, even though Einstein's equation does have solutions that could allow it.

John Rennie
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    You're right, they can't exist in Minkowski. Quite interestingly though, they are possible in Anti-de Sitter space... This is immediately seen by embedding $AdS_D$ in a $D+1$ dimensional Minkowski space and drawing a picture. – Danu Mar 03 '14 at 17:51
  • @Danu What physicists usually mean by AdS is the universal cover of AdS. – ungerade Mar 03 '14 at 19:25
  • @ungerade I am far from an expert, so please elaborate if you'd like! Maybe you can explain how this eliminates the CCT's? – Danu Mar 03 '14 at 20:17
  • @Danu: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-de_Sitter_space#Closed_timelike_curves_and_the_universal_cover – John Rennie Mar 03 '14 at 20:21
  • @JohnRennie I saw this, but it wasn't very helpful to me. – Danu Mar 03 '14 at 20:24
  • @Danu When you connect two sides of a piece of paper (which is "real" Ads) you are able to go around it in circles (timelike closed curves). Since we do not want that we flatten the paper out again (i.e., we disconnect the two sides). – ungerade Mar 04 '14 at 07:37
  • @ungerade ...and the two now disconnected sides become $t\rightarrow\pm \infty$? – Danu Mar 04 '14 at 07:45
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    @Danu Yes. So AdS in physics is usually a universal cover of the real AdS – ungerade Mar 04 '14 at 08:37
  • Do you mean that assuming the big bang theory, it can be shown that general relativity will never create a closed time-like curve? – Timothy Apr 21 '18 at 23:03
  • Yet for quite some time now, regular spacetimes have been discovered that are suitable for time travel and satisfy energy conditions. That is, they do not require exotic matter. For example this: https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0503077.pdf – Attila Janos Kovacs Nov 19 '22 at 00:48