Wormholes are among the strangest ideas in modern physics. They are often imagined as tunnels through space that could connect distant parts of the Universe. In science fiction, wormholes are used for fast travel between galaxies. But in real science, they are mathematical solutions that come from Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.
Now, physicist Mikhail Volkov has developed new models of spinning wormholes that show some surprising behavior. These wormholes can rotate, grow larger because of centrifugal force, and under certain conditions even imitate black holes.
The research focuses on a special type of object called a “ring wormhole.” This wormhole comes from the famous Kerr solution, which normally describes a rotating black hole. When the mass of the Kerr black hole is reduced to zero, something unusual remains behind: a wormhole with a ring-shaped structure.
Even though the space around it is locally flat, the overall shape of spacetime is very unusual. The wormhole connects two separate regions of space through a throat, like a tunnel joining two distant places.
Around the throat lies a circular ring where spacetime becomes singular. A singularity is a place where the equations of physics break down and quantities become infinite.
The static version of this wormhole can be imagined as two copies of normal flat space connected together through a disk-shaped opening. Around this opening sits a ring carrying what physicists call a “conical singularity.”
This ring behaves similarly to a cosmic string — a hypothetical object believed to possibly form in the early Universe. However, unlike ordinary cosmic strings, this ring has negative tension.
That negative tension is very important because wormholes usually need some form of “negative energy” to stay open. Normal matter cannot do this. In these wormholes, the required negative energy is hidden inside the ring itself.
Volkov extended the idea further by studying spinning versions of these wormholes.
Once the wormhole starts rotating, its geometry changes completely. It is no longer locally flat, and it also becomes different from the geometry of a normal Kerr black hole.
One interesting feature is that the wormhole remains symmetric across its throat. If someone crossed from one side to the other, the direction of rotation would appear reversed. However, observers on both sides would still measure the same total mass.
The spinning wormholes are described mainly by two quantities. The first is the size parameter “a,” which determines the ring radius in the non-rotating case. The second is the angular momentum “J,” which measures how fast the wormhole spins.
For slow rotation, the relationship between mass and angular momentum behaves similarly to ordinary rotating objects. The mass increases slowly as the rotation increases.
But when the rotation becomes extremely fast, the behavior changes dramatically.
The wormhole begins following a famous relation known as the Regge relation:
J = M²
This relation also appears in studies of rotating black holes and high-energy physics systems.
As the wormhole spins faster, centrifugal force stretches the ring outward. The faster it rotates, the larger the ring becomes.
The researchers found that if the original ring size stays fixed, then as the ring speed approaches the speed of light, the mass, angular momentum, and ring radius all grow without limit.
In simple terms, the wormhole becomes larger, heavier, and spins more intensely.
However, the scientists discovered another surprising possibility.
If the ring size is allowed to shrink while the rotation speed increases, then the wormhole behaves very differently. In this case, the mass and angular momentum remain finite even when the ring moves almost at the speed of light.
Under these conditions, the wormhole geometry starts looking very similar to the geometry outside an extremal Kerr black hole — a black hole spinning at the maximum speed allowed by physics.
This means the wormhole can effectively “mimic” a black hole.
From far away, it could become extremely difficult to distinguish between the two objects.
This idea is exciting because it suggests that some objects we think are black holes might theoretically hide more complicated structures inside.
The study also examined the energy stored in the spinning ring.
Interestingly, although the ring stretches greatly as it rotates, its total energy changes very little. The reason is that while the ring becomes larger, its tension decreases at almost the same rate.
The researchers found that the ring tension gradually drops as the rotation speed increases. When the ring approaches light speed, the tension becomes very small.
Still, the overall ring energy stays nearly constant.
Despite these fascinating properties, the original wormhole solutions still contain serious problems. The ring singularity creates infinite curvature in spacetime, which is physically troublesome.
To solve this issue, the scientists used something called a “scalarization” procedure.
This method introduces a phantom scalar field into the equations. A phantom scalar field is a special type of field with unusual energy properties that can support wormholes without requiring singularities.
Once this field is added, the singularity disappears completely.
The result is a smooth and regular spinning wormhole.
These new solutions become rotating versions of the famous Bronnikov-Ellis wormhole, one of the best-known theoretical wormhole models in physics.
The study also corrected some earlier results from previous wormhole research.
Earlier work had suggested that angular momentum behaved symmetrically across the wormhole throat. Volkov’s analysis showed instead that it is antisymmetric.
The research also improved calculations related to extremely fast rotation.
One of the biggest goals of the project was finding an exact mathematical formula for these spinning wormholes.
Physicists prefer exact solutions because they provide deeper understanding and are easier to analyze. However, finding such solutions turned out to be extremely difficult.
The researchers tried several mathematical techniques commonly used in General Relativity. Some solutions were found, but each had serious problems.
Some were not asymptotically flat, meaning spacetime failed to look normal far away from the wormhole. Others contained additional singularities called Misner strings.
Because of these difficulties, the team relied mainly on numerical simulations.
Using numerical methods allowed them to explore the behavior of the wormholes in detail, even without exact formulas.
The results may also help future physicists eventually discover a complete analytic solution.
The study suggests that advanced mathematical methods, such as the inverse-scattering method, could play an important role in future research.
Although these spinning wormholes remain theoretical, they reveal how rich and strange Einstein’s equations can be.
General Relativity continues to produce surprising possibilities, including tunnels through spacetime, rings carrying negative energy, and objects capable of imitating black holes.
Whether such wormholes actually exist in nature is still unknown. Scientists have never observed one directly.
But studies like this are important because they help physicists explore the limits of gravity and understand how spacetime behaves under extreme conditions.
Even if wormholes never become real cosmic objects, researching them pushes our understanding of the Universe further and may eventually reveal entirely new physics hidden inside Einstein’s equations.
Reference: Mikhail S. Volkov, "Stationary generalizations for the vacuum ring wormhole", Arxiv, 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27600
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