ESA
A black hole bomb – an idea proposed for the first time in 1969 – was now realized in the laboratory as an experimental model made from a rotary cylinder and magnetic coils. The study of this bomb can help us better understand real black holes.
A team of physicists built the first black hole bomb, a phenomenon theorized for a long time when The energy is amplified by a black hole and is trapped by surrounding mirrors until an explosion occurs.
Fortunately, this version It is just an experimental model Safe, instead of using a real black hole in space, but as physical principles are identical, your study can help researchers better understand how royal black holes turn.
The results of the experience were presented in a recently pre-published in the arXiv.
The idea of extracting energy from a black hole was proposed in 1969 by the British physicist Roger Penrosewhich observed that a particle flying very close to a black hole in rotation would gain energy due to a curious effect of general relativity, which causes the black hole to drag and accelerate the spacetime around it.
Two years later, another physicist, Yakov Zeldovichrealized that a similar process could occur in other scenariosas the light moving around a Metallic cylinder in fast rotation.
Zeldovich estimated that this effect of “superradance” should occur as long as the cylinder spins at the same frequency as light – but this is incredibly fast.
“It is impossible to make anything made of matter at these speeds,” he says Hendrik Ulbrichtresearcher at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, and the main author of the article, quoted by.
Zeldovich also suggested that by involving the rotary cylinder with a cylindrical mirror, the amplified energy could be reflected and accumulated in a cycle of positive feedbackuntil energy is released or explained.
Applying this idea to black holesone of them could be used to produce a “black hole bomb”releasing as much energy as a supernova.
This would also work even without an external energy sourcewith the black hole to amplify small electromagnetic fluctuations in the vacuum of the space, effectively producing energy from noise.
All of this has remained to this day in the theoretical sphere.
In the new study, Ulbricht and colleagues found a way to demonstrate Zeldovich’s feedback cycle using a rotary aluminum cylinder and magnetic fields. The team built the first prototype During the first confinement of COVID-19 in the UK in 2020.
“Everything was closed, and I was really boring And I wanted to do somethingThen I built the configuration and started doing these experiences, and saw the amplification. I was so enthusiastic that, in fact, it can be said that it saved me during Covid, ”says Ulbricht.
The German physicist then recruited colleagues to build a more robust experimental configuration, which consists of rotary aluminum cylinder fed by an electric motor, surrounded by three layers of coils metal that produce a magnetic field spinning around the cylinder at a similar speed.
In this configuration, the coils act as a mirror, and the magnetic field as light. As Zeldovich predicted, that produced an even greater magnetic field emanating from the cylinder.
“Launching a low frequency electromagnetic wave against a rotating cylinder, Who would think that get back more than what launched? It is completely hallucinating, ”says the Portuguese astrophysicist Vitor CardosoResearcher at the University of Lisbon and Physics Professor at IST.
Ulbricht and his team then showed that, even without the coils producing an external magnetic field to start, the configuration would still generate an uncontrolled signal on the surrounding coils, as in the theoretical example of a black hole without an external energy source.
“We are basically generating a sign from noiseand this is the same thing that happens in the proposal of the black hole bomb, ”says Ulbricht.
“Having accurate laboratory measurements of this process really allows you to say with confidence: ‘Yes, this must happen in the physics of black holes too‘”Says Vitor Cardoso.
Although the laboratory version is just an analog, it can help physicists understand how royal black holes provide energy to the particles around them, and help test theoretical ideas about non -observed particle fields, as one that gives rise to dark matter.
“If there are new fields, we should be seeing, for example, gravitational waves to be emitted from this cloud around black holes, or We should see the black holes to slow their rotation Because they are giving their energy to these new particles, ”says Cardoso.
“Thus, the superordinion is transform black holes into detectors of particles – and much better particle detectors than the large CERN hadrons collier can be, for this type of dark matter. ”
