Photon surfaces as pure tension shells: Uniqueness of thin shell wormholes

Abstract

Thin shell wormholes are constructed by joining two asymptotically flat spacetimes along their inner boundaries. The junction conditions imposed on the spacetimes specify the equation of state of the matter called thin shell distributed along the joined boundaries. Barcelo and Visser (2000) reported that spherically symmetric thin shell wormholes have their shells, namely the wormhole throats, on the photon spheres if the wormholes are $Z_2$-symmetric across the throats and the shells are of pure tension. In this paper, first, we consider general joined spacetimes (JSTs) and show that any $Z_2$-symmetric pure-tensional JST (Z2PTJST) of $\Lambda$-vacuum has its shell on a photon surface, a generalized object of photon spheres, without assuming any other symmetries. The class of Z2PTJSTs also includes, for example, brane world models with the shells being the branes we live in. Second, we investigate the shell stability of Z2PTJSTs by analyzing the stability of the corresponding photon surfaces. Finally, applying the uniqueness theorem of photon spheres by Cederbaum (2015), we establish the uniqueness theorem of static wormholes of Z2PTJST.