STRESS-ENERGY OF A QUANTIZED SCALAR FIELD IN STATIC WORMHOLE SPACETIMES

Static traversable wormhole solutions of the Einstein equations requir e ''exotic'' matter which violates the weak energy condition. The vacu um stress-energy of quantized fields has been proposed as the source f or this matter. Using the Dewitt-Schwinger approximation, analytic exp ressions for the stress-energy of a quantized massive scalar field are calculated in five static, spherically symmetric Lorentzian wormhole spacetimes. We do not attempt to solve the self-consistent semiclassic al Einstein equations but instead work in the test-field limit. We fin d that in all five cases, for both minimally and conformally coupled s calar fields, the stress-energy does not even qualitatively have the p roperties needed to support the wormhole geometry.