Abstract. We construct a kinematical analogue of superluminal travel in the "warped" space-times curved by gravitation, in the form of "super-phononic" travel in the curved effective space-times of perfect nonrelativistic fluids. These warp-field space-times are most easily generated by considering a solid object that is placed as an obstruction in an otherwise uniform flow. No violation of any condition on the positivity of energy is necessary, because the effective curved space-times for the phonons are ruled by the Euler and continuity equations, and not by the Einstein field equations.

PACS number: 02.40.Ky

Print publication: Issue 1 (April 2003)
Received 25 November 2002, accepted for publication 31 January 2003