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Researchers may have solved Professor Stephen Hawking’s famous black hole paradox, a mystery that has puzzled scientists for nearly half a century.
Something called “quantum hair” is the answer to the problem, according to two new studies.
In the first article published in the journal Physical Examination LettersResearchers have shown that black holes are more complex than originally thought and have gravitational fields that contain information about how they formed.
Researchers have shown that matter collapsing into a black hole leaves a trail gravity field– an imprint called “Quantum Hair”.
In a follow-up article published in a separate journal, Physics Letters BProfessor Xavier Calmet of the University of Sussex’s School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Professor Stephen Hsu of Michigan State University said that quantum hairs solve Hawking’s black hole information paradox.
In 1976, Hawking proposed that as black holes evaporate, they destroy information about what formed them.
This idea contradicts a basic law of quantum mechanics which states that every process in physics can be mathematically reversed.
In the 1960s, while discussing the lack of observable properties of black holes beyond their total mass, spin, and charge, physicist John Archibald Wheeler coined the phrase “black holes have no hair” — known as the hairless theorem.
However, the recently discovered “quantum hair” offers a way to store information when a black hole collapses, and as such, one of the modern sciencemost famous dilemmas, experts say.
Professor Calmet said: “Black holes have long been considered the perfect laboratory to study how to merge Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics.
“He was generally accepted scientific community that resolution of this paradox would require an enormous paradigm shift in physics, forcing the potential reformulation of quantum mechanics or general relativity.
“What we found – and I find this particularly exciting – is that it doesn’t have to be.”
Roberto Casadio, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Bologna, explained the discovery of the “quantum hair” by saying: “A crucial aspect is that black holes are formed by the collapse of compact objects and then, according to the quantum theoryThere is no absolute separation between the interior and the exterior of the black hole.
“By doing classical theory, the horizon acts as a perfect one-way membrane, letting nothing out, and therefore the exterior is the same for all black holes of a given mass. It’s the classic no hair theorem,” added Casadio.
“In quantum theory, however, the state of the matter that is collapsing and forming the black hole continues to affect the state of the outside, albeit in a way that is consistent with current experimental limits. This is referred to as ‘quantum hair’.”
Xavier Calmet et al, Quantum Information about Hair and Black Holes, Physics Letters B (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2022.136995
Xavier Calmet et al, Quantum Hair from Gravity, Physical Examination Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.111301
2022 dpa GmbH.
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