High energy collision of two particles in wormhole spacetimes

Abstract

We study the collision of two particles in the Teo wormhole spacetime, in which the wormhole is stationary and axisymmetric. We show that a non-rotating Teo wormhole cannot be a particle accelerator, while a rotating Teo wormhole can be used to accelerate particles and create high energy collisions because of the deep effective potential of the colliding particles. The process is different from that in the vicinity of a near-extremal black hole, since here there is no event horizon. This is the first example of particle collision with high center-of-mass energy in a spacetime with no event horizon, no naked singularity, and not being extremal in a clear sense. The process can unlikely have direct implications for astrophysical observations, but it is interesting as a tool to investigate wormhole instabilities.