Vibe check: energy conditions in classical and quantum field theory

Energy conditions are attempts to summarise the properties of realistic descriptions of matter, encapsulating for example the idea that energy densities should be positive. Being such general statements, they can have very profound consequences, for example ruling out wormholes and superluminal travel. However, the classical energy conditions are all violated by essentially any quantum field theory, raising the question whether such phenomena are actually allowed by quantum mechanical systems. In this talk, I will briefly introduce the classical energy conditions and some of their consequences; then, I'll discuss how they can be generalised to quantum field theories, both in flat spacetimes and some curved ones.