For decades, physicists have wrestled with one of the deepest puzzles in modern science: the “black hole information paradox.” Now, a new theoretical study suggests a possible solution, one that could also shed light on another major mystery in physics, the origin of the mass of fundamental particles.<\/p>\n
The paradox traces back to work by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s. Using semi-classical calculations, Hawking showed that black holes are not completely black. Instead, they emit a faint form of radiation that slowly drains their energy, causing them to shrink and eventually disappear.<\/p>\n
That result created a serious problem. According to quantum mechanics, information cannot be destroyed. Yet if a black hole evaporates completely, all information about the matter that fell into it appears to vanish as well. This apparent contradiction became known as the black hole information paradox.<\/p>\n
A new study led by Richard Pin\u010d\u00e1k and published in General Relativity and Gravitation proposes a different outcome. The researchers suggest that the answer may lie in the geometry of a higher dimensional universe.<\/p>\n
Extra Dimensions and Twisted Spacetime<\/p>\n
The team investigated a version of gravity known as Einstein-Cartan theory, formulated in 7 dimensions on a mathematical structure called a G2-manifold with torsion.<\/p>\n
Unlike Einstein’s General Relativity, which describes spacetime as something that can bend or curve, Einstein-Cartan theory also allows spacetime to twist. This twisting is known as spacetime torsion.<\/p>\n
According to the model, torsion becomes especially important at the extreme densities associated with the Planck scale. Under those conditions, it generates a repulsive force that works against gravitational collapse.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that this repulsive effect can stop the final stage of Hawking evaporation. Rather than disappearing completely, a black hole would leave behind a stable “remnant” with a predicted mass of about 9*10-41 kg.<\/p>\n
Black Hole Remnants as Information Storage<\/p>\n
If a black hole never fully vanishes, the next question is obvious: what happens to the information it contains?<\/p>\n
The researchers propose that the remnant serves as a long term information repository. In their framework, information is stored through a spectrum of “quasi-normal modes” associated with the remnant’s structure.<\/p>\n
More specifically, quantum information becomes encoded within long lived “vibrations” of the torsion field that exist inside the remnant’s geometry.<\/p>\n
Their calculations suggest that a remnant left behind by a black hole with the mass of the Sun could store approximately 1.515*1077 qubits of information. According to the researchers, that capacity is exactly sufficient to preserve the information needed to resolve the paradox.<\/p>\n
A Possible Connection to the Higgs Field<\/p>\n
The study also reaches beyond black holes and into particle physics.<\/p>\n
The researchers argue that reducing the geometry from 7 dimensions to 4 dimensions, the spacetime we experience, naturally produces the electroweak scale ~246$ GeV). This energy scale is closely associated with the Higgs field, which is responsible for giving elementary particles their mass.<\/p>\n
Within the model, the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the torsion field is dynamically identified with the electroweak scale (about 246 GeV).<\/p>\n
As a result, the same geometric mechanism that prevents black holes from completely evaporating and preserves quantum information could also provide a geometric explanation for the mass hierarchy problem, one of the long standing challenges in particle physics.<\/p>\n
How Could the Theory Be Tested?<\/p>\n
If extra dimensions play such a fundamental role, why have scientists not observed them directly?<\/p>\n
According to the study, the particles linked to these dimensions (Kaluza-Klein excitations) would have masses of roughly 8.6*1015 GeV. That energy scale is about seven orders of magnitude beyond what the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can reach.<\/p>\n
However, the authors emphasize that being beyond the reach of current particle accelerators does not make the theory impossible to test.<\/p>\n
Because the framework is built on specific geometric relationships, it produces concrete predictions that could potentially be investigated through astronomical observations.<\/p>\n
One possibility involves the stable black hole remnants themselves. The predicted remnants (9*10-41 kg) could contribute to Dark Matter. Detecting the gravitational effects of these proposed “Planckian relics” would provide direct support for the theory.<\/p>\n
The model also makes distinctive predictions about how information is encoded in the remnants’ “vibrations” (quasi-normal modes), providing a mathematical signature that sets it apart from competing ideas.<\/p>\n
In addition, the extremely high energy scales involved are characteristic of the early universe. That means traces of the proposed 7-dimensional geometry might be preserved in the Cosmic Microwave Background or in primordial gravitational waves.<\/p>\n
By connecting black holes, quantum information, extra dimensions, and the Higgs field within a single framework, the study offers an ambitious attempt to address multiple outstanding problems in physics. If the idea proves correct, the black hole information paradox may not require a revision of quantum mechanics after all. Instead, it could point toward a deeper understanding of reality rooted in a 7-dimensional structure of spacetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, physicists have wrestled with one of the deepest puzzles in modern science: the “black hole information…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[240377,85,46,370,141],"class_list":["post-530071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-black-holes-dark-matter-sun-cosmology-albert-einstein-quantum-physics-physics-optics","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}