Physicists have long assumed that the universe looks the same in all directions, and now they have found a new way to test that hypothesis: by examining the shadows of black holes.
If the shadow is slightly smaller than what physics theory predicted, it could help prove a distant idea known as a bumblebee. GravityWhich explains what would happen if the universe’s seemingly perfect symmetry was not perfect.
If scientists are able to discover such tiny shaded black holes, it will open the door to new understanding of gravity and may explain why the universe is expanding faster.
But to understand how the idea of a bumblebee can fly, let̵
7;s take a look at basic physics.Related: The 18 biggest mysteries in physics
Look in the mirror
Favorite physicist symmetrical; After all, it helps us understand the deepest secrets of the universe. For example, physicists realized that if you were doing an experiment on basic physics, you could move the test equipment elsewhere and you would get the same results again. (That is, if all other factors such as temperature and gravity Still the same).
In other words, no matter where you do space experiments, you will get the same results. With mathematical logic, this leads to Law of Conservation of Momentum.
Another example: If you run a test and wait a while before running it again, you will get the same results. (Again, all are equal) This transient symmetry leads directly to the law of conservation of energy – that energy can never be created or destroyed.
There is another important symmetry that forms the foundation of modern physics. It is called “Lawrence” symmetry in honor of physicist Hendrick Lawrence, who discovered all of this in the early 1900s. It turns out that you can experiment and change it and (All else being equal) you get the same result. You can also increase your test to a constant speed and to Get the same result
In other words, everything else is equal – and yes, I’m repeating it often because it’s important – if you do the experiment with all the breaks and do the same experiment at half the speed of the light, you get. Same result
This is the symmetry that Lawrence revealed: the laws of physics are the same – location, time, direction and speed.
What do we get from this fundamental symmetry? For starters, we get all the special theories of Einstein. RelativityWhich determines the constant velocity of light and describes how space and time are linked for objects traveling at different speeds.
Bumblebee gravity
Special relativity is so important to physics that it’s almost a physics glossary: if you want to create your own idea of how the universe works, it has to be compatible with the order of special relativity.
Or not.
Physicists are trying to reinvent theories of physics and improve them all the time, because old theories, such as general relativity, which describe how matter varies, space time, and the standard model of particle physics, cannot explain everything in the universe such as birth. What’s up In the center of the black hole And one more interesting place to look into new physics is to see if any lovely idea may be inaccurate in extreme conditions – a favorite concept like Lawrence’s symmetry.
Related: 8 ways you’ll see Einstein’s theory of relativity in real life
Some types of gravity argue that the universe is asymmetric. These models predict that there is a special ingredient in the universe that forces it to not always follow Lawrence’s symmetry. In other words, there will be a special direction or a privilege in the universe.
These new models describe the so-called hypothesis. “Bumblebee gravity” derives its name from a concept that scientists once claimed that bumblebees are unlikely to fly because we don’t understand how their wings generate lift. (Scientists never really believed it.) We do not fully understand how these models of gravity work and how they fit into the universe we see. But they are there, staring at us in the face Possible options for new physics.
One of the most powerful uses of the bumblebee gravity model is to describe. Dark energy – The phenomenon responsible for the rapid expansion of the universe. It turns out that the degree to which our universe violates Lawrence’s symmetry can be linked to an effect that creates accelerated expansion. And since we don’t know what creates dark energy, this possibility looks very interesting.
Black shadow
So you have an interesting new theory of gravity based on some great ideas like symmetry violation. Where are you going to test that idea? You will go to a place where gravity stretches to its absolute limit, a black hole. The new study was yet to be reviewed and published online in November 2020 to a pre-print database. arXivThe researchers do so, looking at the shadows of the black holes in the fictional universe most realistically replicated.
(Remember The first image of a black hole M87, produced by the Event Horizon Telescope last year? The dark, beautiful and terrifying void in the middle of the ring of light is actually the “shadow” of the black hole, the area that absorbs all the light from behind and around).
To make the model as realistic as possible, the team placed black holes in the background of the accelerating cosmos. (As what we have observed) and adjusted the degree of symmetry violation to match the behavior of dark energy measured by scientists.
They found that in this case, the shadow of the black hole could appear smaller than the Earth. “Normal gravity” by up to 10%, which is the definitive way to test bumblebee gravity. While the current image of the M87 black hole is too vague to tell the difference. But efforts to take even better photos of black holes, exploring the deepest mysteries of the universe in the process.
Originally published in Live Science.
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