There’s only one way to study a black hole up close: build a copy in the lab. One physicist claims his desktop black hole, which swallows sound instead of light, has been spotted emitting entangled quantum particles. It could be a breakthrough in studying the exotic physics of these weird objects – although not everyone is convinced this fake black hole is the real deal.
Black holes are the ultra-dense leftovers of dead stars and are black because their gravity is so intense that nothing, including light, can escape from their gaping maws – a point of no return called the event horizon. But a strange quirk of quantum theory suggests black holes aren’t completely dark.
In 1974, Stephen Hawking predicted event horizons should leak a faint glow. Quantum theory says particles all have an antimatter counterpart, and these pairs constantly spring into existence before embracing in mutual oblivion. But a black hole might pull pairs that form at its edge apart: if one of the pair is just outside its clutches, it could escape while the other is pulled across the event horizon. The escaped particle can be seen, in theory, as Hawking radiation.
But this signal is too faint to see from real black holes, so to test it, physicists have built miniature artificial versions in which sound plays the role of light.
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