Can wormholes exist?

Abstract

Renormalized vacuum expectation values of electromagnetic stress-energy tensor are calculated in the background spherically-symmetrical metric of the wormhole's topology. Covariant geodesic point separation method of regularization is used. Violation of the weak energy condition at the throat of wormhole takes place for geometry sufficiently close to that of infinitely long wormhole of constant radius irrespectively of the detailed form of metric. This is an argument in favour of possibility of existence of selfconsistent wormhole in empty space maintained by vacuum field fluctuations in the wormhole's background.