TIME MACHINES: THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-CONSISTENCY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF MINIMAL ACTION

A. CARLINI, V.P. FROLOV, M.B. MENSKY, I.D. NOVIKOV, H.H. SOLENG
1995 International Journal of Modern Physics D  
We consider the action principle to derive the classical, non-relativistic motion of a self-interacting particle in a 4-D Lorentzian spacetime containing a wormhole and which allows the existence of closed time-like curves. For the case of a 'hardsphere' self-interaction potential we show that the only possible trajectories (for a particle with fixed initial and final positions and which traverses the wormhole once) minimizing the classical action are those which are globally self-consistent,
more » ... d that the 'Principle of self-consistency' (originally introduced by Novikov) is thus a natural consequence of the 'Principle of minimal action.'
doi:10.1142/s0218271895000399 fatcat:p6gvvrhx3zhgpdxtx7ogp5cqkm