Scientists: Quantum Hair Theory Can Solve Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox | Hawking Radiation | Quantum Mechanics

[The Epoch Times March 22, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Gao Wensen compiled and reported) A team of scientists claims they have finally solved the problem that has puzzled physicists for decades.black holea paradox.

black holeIt can be said to be the strangest and most extreme celestial body in the universe known to people. Scientists think they are formed by the collapse of massive stars at the end of their lives. A black hole has a huge gravitational pull, and anything that comes close to it will be absorbed by it, even light.

Around the 1970s, the late well-known physicist Stephen Hawking and colleagues made a discovery that left physicists with a huge mystery regarding black holes. Their discovery is simply called “Hawking radiation” (Hawking Radiation) theory, which means that a black hole leaks its energy in the form of faint light radiation. Over time, the black hole’s energy eventually leaks light, and the black hole disappears completely.

Why is this discovery such a huge mystery? Because various calculations performed by scientists show that “Hawking radiation“The energy cannot be used to detect any information in the black hole. In other words, when the black hole finally disappears, it means that any matter and information that the black hole has engulfed is completely lost with it.

But this contradicts quantum theory.Quantum mechanicsTheory is one of the important pillars of contemporary physics, which can well explain a large number of physical phenomena at the fundamental level of the universe. Quantum mechanics holds that any information in the universe will never disappear. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explained that as long as an observer knows the current state of any system, there is a way to know all the information regarding the past and future of the system.

This paradox is known as the black hole information paradox.What frustrates scientists most regarding this contradiction is that it showsQuantum mechanicsThere is a problem with the theory of relativity, the two most important theoretical pillars of modern physics.

According to a study published March 17 in Physical Review Letters, they have finally resolved the paradox — finally being able to connect quantum mechanics and relativity.

The research was a collaboration between scientists from the UK, Italy and the US. The researchers found that, in fact, the information inside the black hole can be detected through the external characteristics of the black hole, which they called “”hair theory“. This is relative to the previously well-known “no-hair theorem” of black holes. The “hairless theory” believes that only three properties of mass, charge and angular momentum of a black hole can be detected from external features.

The calculations completed in this study suggest that more information regarding black holes can still be inferred from external characteristics. They found that matter falling into a black hole leaves a specific imprint on the black hole’s gravitational field. That is, these imprints retain information regarding these substances.

The significance of this discovery is that quantum mechanics and gravity can finally be linked without contradictions on the black hole paradox. One of the lead researchers, Xavier Calmet of the University of Sussex in the UK, told The Guardian: “Our study shows that the calculations made by both theories regarding black holes are Consistent, the storage of information can be explained without the need to develop new theories.”

Calmet admits that the discovery is “heavy” and that it will take some time for the scientific community to accept it. ◇#

Responsible editor: Ye Ziwei