Frenemies with Physicality: Manufacturing Manifold Metrics

Abstract: Physicality has the bad habit of sneaking up on unsuspecting physicists. Unfortunately, it comes in multitudinous incarnations, which will not always make sense in a given situation. Breaching a warp drive metric with physical arguments is all good, but often what counts as physicality here is but a mere mask for something else. In times of analogue space-times and quantum effects, a more open mind is needed. Not only to avoid using a concept of physicality out of its natural habitat, but also to find useful toy models for our enlarged phenomenology of physics with metrics. This journey is bound to be as vexing, confusing, and subtle as it (hopefully) will be illuminating, entertaining, and thought-provoking.