A 'Glowing' Lab-Grown Black Hole Can Expand Our Understanding Of The Universe
Scientists recently created a black hole in the lab, and then watched it grow. We're not making this up!
This black hole can teach human scientists about the mysterious radiation that comes from a real black hole. How did scientists conjure a black hole in a lab? They used a "chain of atoms in single-file to simulate the event horizon of a black hole."
This let them observe the equivalent of what scientists call Hawking Radiation, wherein particles are born from disturbances happening due to black hole's disruption in spacetime.
What this means for the study of black holes
Scientists hope to resolve the issues between two frameworks that describe the universe - the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. What we learn from black holes can unify these two models.
Black holes are extremely dense - not even light can escape them. In a certain distance, not even the fastest object can escape the black hole - this region is called its event horizon.
Also read:?Closest Black Hole To Earth Discovered: All You Need To Know
In 1974, Stephen Hawking suggested that a radiation (similar to thermal radiation) is created after interruptions caused by the event horizon.
If this Hawking radiation even exists, it's too faint for us to detect it. But scientists can create black hole analogs in a lab. While this has been done before, a team from the University of Amsterdam has done something new, Science Alert first reported.
By creating a one-dimensional chain of atoms, scientists allowed electrons to "hop" from one position to another. They were able to decide how this hopping is occurring, allowing certain properties to disappear.
They were able to create an event horizon, effects of which led to a rise in temperature - matching what's theoretically expected from a black hole, but only when this chain of atoms extended beyond the event horizon.
Also read:?Novel Way Allows Astronomers To Study Life Cycle Of Supermassive Black Holes
The study, published in Physical Review Research, then suggests that the entanglement of particles that takes place at the event horizon is important to create Hawking Radiation.
Under certain simulations, the Hawking Radiation was mimicking a spacetime that might be considered "flat," and it remained thermal within certain ranges of hopping. This suggests that Hawking Radiation may also be thermal within a range of situations, Science Alert reported.
What do you think about this black hole in lab? Let us know in the comments below.?For more in the world of?technology?and?science, keep reading?Indiatimes.com.??
References
Mertens, L., Moghaddam, A. G., Chernyavsky, D., Morice, C., van den Brink, J., & van Wezel, J. (2022). Thermalization by a synthetic horizon. Physical Review Research, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.4.043084
Starr, M. (2022, November 15). Scientists Created a Black Hole in The Lab, And Then It Started to Glow?: ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-created-a-black-hole-in-the-lab-and-then-it-started-to-glow
