Gravitational perturbations in the Newman-Penrose formalism: Applications to wormholes

Abstract

In this work we study the problem of linear stability of gravitational perturbations in stationary and spherically symmetric wormholes. For this purpose, we employ the Newman-Penrose formalism which is well-suited for treating gravitational radiation in General Relativity, as well as the geometrical aspect of this theory. With this method we obtain a "master equation" that describes the behavior of gravitational perturbations that are of odd-parity in the Regge-Wheeler gauge. This equation is later applied to a specific class of Morris-Thorne wormholes and also to the metric of an asymptotically flat scalar field wormhole. The analysis of the equations that these space-times yield reveals that there are no unstable vibrational modes generated by the type of perturbations here studied.