Energy dominance and the Hawking Ellis vacuum conservation theorem

At a time when uninhibited speculation about negative tension – and by implication negative mass density – world branes has become commonplace, it seems worthwhile to call attention to the risk involved in sacrificing traditional energy positivity postulates such as are required for the classical vacuum stability theorem of Hawking and Ellis. As well as recapitulating the technical content of this reassuring (when applicable) theorem, the present article provides a new, rather more economical proof.