No information escapes from black holes, that's the theory.
But that contradicts quantum mechanics.
Now researchers want to have found a solution.
Brighton – Black holes are mysterious celestial bodies: Because they attract everything and let nothing out, they are invisible themselves.
And can only be discovered by interacting with other celestial bodies.
In 1974, the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking, who died in 2018, plunged the physics world into a crisis: he calculated that black holes destroy information.
Hawking explained that radiation emanates from a black hole slowly and in the form of thermal energy -- so-called Hawking radiation.
However, because it is thermal, it cannot carry any information with it.
Conversely, as a black hole slowly dissipates by emitting Hawking radiation, it loses all information about the stars from which it formed and the celestial bodies it engulfed.
However, this assumption contradicts the basic principle of quantum mechanics: information cannot simply disappear and the final state of an object contains clues about its initial state.
Stephen Hawking and the black hole information paradox
Dubbed the “black hole information paradox,” the problem has plagued cosmologists for decades.
But now a research team has apparently found a solution.
"This research is the final nail in the coffin of the paradox because we now understand the exact physical phenomenon of how information escapes from a dying black hole," physicist Xavier Calmet (University of Sussex) told Live
Science
.
Calmet is the lead author of a study showing the solution to the information paradox,
published in the journal
Physics Letters B.
Surname: | Stephen William Hawking |
|---|---|
Born: | January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England |
Died: | March 14, 2018 Cambridge, UK |
Profession: | theoretical physicist and astrophysicist |
Profession: | Lucasian Chair in Mathematics at Cambridge University (1979-2009) |
Miscellaneous: | suffers from ALS, has used a wheelchair since 1968 and a voice computer since 1985 |
Miscellaneous: | Hawking's grave lies between the tombs of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin in Westminster Abbey in London |
"While the final black hole is very simple, the original star that gave birth to it is a complex astrophysical object, made up of an intricate mixture of protons, electrons, and neutrons that combine to form the elements that make up the star's chemical composition form,” emphasizes Calmet.
Quantum physics says "that the movie of the life of this black hole" can be rewound.
"Starting with the radiation, we should be able to restore the original black hole and then eventually the star," says the physicist.
No information escapes from a black hole – or does it?
Calmet has been working for several years to crack the black hole information paradox caused by Hawking radiation.
Now a team led by Calmet Stephen Hawkings has made calculations from the 1970s and included the description of gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics.
Hawking hadn't done that.
"We were able to show that these effects change the Hawking radiation in such a way that this radiation becomes non-thermal," Calmet told Live Science, summarizing the new finding: "In other words, if you include quantum gravity, the radiation may contain information.”
The research team has managed to identify the physical phenomenon through which information about Hawking radiation leaks out of the black hole.
However, it is currently not possible to collect this information as there are no instruments that can measure the Hawking radiation - it is therefore considered purely theoretical so far.
However, Calmet suggests studying black hole simulations in labs to find out more.
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