Title: Electromagnetic-Alcubierre thruster

Authors: Morgan H. Lynch

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 32000, Israel

Abstract: In this manuscript we propose an electromagnetic thruster based on an analogue of the Alcubierre warp solution. The construction of such a solution can be accomplished by including a parallel plate capacitor in an electromagnetic resonating chamber. By tuning an AC voltage across the capacitor at resonance with the oscillation frequency of the electromagnetic field in the cavity one can produce a net force on the charges in the capacitor and thus on the device as a whole. The net thrust will be provided by the scattered electromagnetic waves which exit the chamber as exhaust and will depend on the resonator geometry, capacitor voltage, and power input from the electromagnetic field generator. For high energy electromagnetic field generators, 1-g of thrust can be sustained for extended periods of time on large space craft and thereby enables the possibility of robust travel within the solar system.

Keywords: advanced propulsion; warp drive; Alcubierre metric; analogue gravity; space exploration; electromagnetic thrust.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPACESE.2021.113887

International Journal of Space Science and Engineering, 2021 Vol.6 No.3, pp.247 - 256

Received: 13 Jun 2020
Accepted: 14 Sep 2020
Published online: 31 Mar 2021 *

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