A novel form of black hole analog could be able to shed some light on an illusive radiation that the actual thing is supposed to release.
A group of scientists have detected the equivalent of what we refer to as Hawking radiation – particles created from disruptions in the quantum fluctuations induced by the black hole’s rupture in spacetime – using a chain of single-file atoms to imitate the event horizon of a black hole.
The general theory of relativity, which describes the behavior of gravity as a continuous field known as spacetime, and quantum mechanics, which describes the behavior of discrete particles using the mathematics of probability, could help resolve the tension between these two frameworks for describing the universe, they claim.
These two immiscible theories need to discover a method to coexist in order to have a unified theory of quantum gravity that can be used everywhere.
Black holes—possibly the strangest, most extreme things in the Universe—come into play in this scenario. Within a certain radius of the black hole’s center of mass, these enormous objects are so immensely dense that no velocity in the universe is fast enough to allow escape. anything except light speed.
The event horizon refers to the distance, which varies based on the black hole’s mass. Since nothing returns with crucial information about an object’s destiny after it has crossed its border, we can only speculate as to what occurs. However, Stephen Hawking postulated in 1974 that the event horizon’s disruption of quantum fluctuations results in a kind of radiation very similar to thermal radiation.
Even if it does, it is now too weak for us to detect. We may never be able to separate it from the hissing static of the universe. But by making black hole replicas in a lab, we can examine its characteristics.
Despite the fact that this has been done previously, a team lead by Lotte Mertens from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has created something brand-new.
Electrons ‘hopped’ from one location to another along a one-dimensional chain of atoms. The scientists were able to make some qualities disappear by adjusting how easily this hopping could take place. This resulted in the formation of an event horizon that interfered with the electrons’ ability to behave like waves.
Only when a portion of the chain stretched beyond the event horizon did the impact of this fictitious event horizon result in a temperature increase that matched theoretical predictions of an analogous black hole system, the scientists said.
This might imply that Hawking radiation is produced as a result of the entanglement of particles that cross the event horizon.
Under simulations that started by simulating a type of spacetime regarded as being “flat,” the Hawking radiation was only thermal for a specific range of hop amplitudes. This shows that under some conditions and when there is a shift in the space-time warp caused by gravity, Hawking radiation may only be thermal.
The model provides a tool to explore the genesis of Hawking radiation in a setting unaffected by the chaotic dynamics of black hole creation, although it is unclear what this implies for quantum gravity. Additionally, the researchers noted that since it is so straightforward, it may be used in a variety of experimental setups.
The researchers argue that this “can create a venue for probing basic quantum-mechanical features alongside gravity and curved spacetimes in diverse condensed matter scenarios.”
Physical Review Research has published the study.
