Paper reports first 3D numerical-relativity simulations of wormhole binaries
A new arXiv paper reports 3D simulations of Ellis-Bronnikov wormhole pairs, finding only opposite-signed pairs merge.
A paper posted to arXiv on 9 October 2026 reports what its authors say are the first 3D numerical-relativity evolutions of wormhole binaries. The study, by Nikita M. Shirokov and one co-author, models pairs of massive Ellis-Bronnikov drainholes held open by a ghost scalar field.
Each throat is an unstable fixed point, and its e-fold time matches the González-Guzmán-Sarbach linear rate to within 1.9%. Two throats follow a charge-sign rule: like scalar charges repel and opposite charges attract. The measured attraction-to-repulsion ratio is 1.462±0.022, against a predicted 3/2, so only opposite-signed pairs merge.
In a head-on collision, a common marginally outer trapped surface forms around both still-open throats with about their combined area. The horizon then loses 28% of its area as it swallows the phantom field. By t=100 it lies within 1.4% of the Schwarzschild radius of the pair's mass and is still shrinking. Fly-by pairs form no horizon, and both mouths inflate.
The authors report that every encounter radiates a burst of gravitational waves and a scalar dipole of comparable energy and negative sign. A throat survives at most a few orbital periods for any plausible perturbation, and the negative-energy dipole would pump the orbit rather than drain it, so these binaries have no inspiral.
Sourcearxiv.org