In 2023, the KM3NeT neutrino detector picked up an impossibly powerful signal\u2014tens of thousands of times more energetic than anything produced by humanity\u2019s best particle accelerators. Since then, scientists have tried to pinpoint its source, dipping into some creative\u2014and arguably wild\u2014explanations.<\/p>\n
But a new theory may just take the cake for the weirdest.\u00a0Some scientists are now arguing that, simply, the signal came from an ancient black hole made of cosmic strings, hiding inside a fifth dimension. So, actually, not very simple\u2014but according to a recent paper<\/a> published in Physical Review D, the rules of quantum gravity \u201cinevitably\u201d lead to five-dimensional primordial black holes, or super-dense, hypothetical black holes from the cosmic dawn. To be clear, the study focused on the possibility of primordial black holes emerging from this string-based framework.<\/p>\n However, if this interpretation is validated, it would very nicely explain what we\u2019ve yet to understand about the 2023 signal. For instance, this neutrino\u2014a tiny, neutral particle\u2014wasn\u2019t accompanied by other photons, which is why detectors as capable as KM3NeT never caught it, explained the team, which includes Dieter L\u00fcst, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Germany.<\/p>\n The cosmic pitcher <\/p>\n Neutrinos are sometimes described as \u201cghostly<\/a>\u201d\u00a0because they rarely interact with other matter, making them difficult to detect and study despite their extreme abundance. Although many things about the neutrino\u2014including things as simple as its mass\u2014remain undefined, astrophysicists have found that they\u2019re incredibly useful for studying cosmic phenomena. Specifically, the energy levels of a neutrino clue scientists into the identity and characteristics of whatever flung it to Earth.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s not always easy to identify a neutrino\u2019s cosmic pitcher, so to speak. This was precisely the case for the 2023 KM3NeT signal. This tiny particle slammed into Earth at an energy level roughly 30,000 times higher<\/a> than anything that CERN\u2019s Large Hadron Collider is capable of producing. Since then, scientists have tried to find a decent-fitting candidate for the signal\u2019s origins. Some explanations were more common, like blazars<\/a>, whereas others ventured into more theoretical (arguably strange) territory, such as the explosion of primordial black holes leaking dark electrons<\/a>.<\/p>\n Enter the dark dimension <\/p>\n Unless you\u2019re a string theorist, the latest work definitely falls into the latter category. As Harvard physicist Cumrun Vafa previously explained<\/a> to Gizmodo, the \u201cdark\u201d dimension is a hypothetical extra dimension in string theory. According to the paper, only gravity rules over this fifth dimension, which can be as tiny as a thousandth of a millimeter and emerges as a consequence of the universe\u2019s expansion.<\/p>\n The idea is that primordial black holes come from the collapse of cosmic strings in this hypothetical dimension\u2014as opposed to the more popular interpretation<\/a> that they formed via rapid inflation during the cosmic dawn. As the team admitted in the paper, to deviate from this account may seem \u201cexotic,\u201d but studying quantum gravity has continuously challenged what \u201cnatural\u201d means in gravitational theories. At the very least, previous<\/a> analyses<\/a> have suggested that the inflationary mechanism is \u201cin tension\u201d with expectations of quantum gravity, the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n Extreme measures <\/p>\n So it\u2019s worthwhile to consider alternative scenarios\u2014like the dark dimension, which the researchers wrote \u201cnaturally explain the absence of an associated high-energy photon\u201d in the 2023 neutrino signal. At the cosmic dawn, strings\u2014seen here as thin cracks in spacetime\u2014would have collected into \u201cloops\u201d that collapse into relatively small black holes.<\/p>\n According to the team\u2019s calculations, the rate of evaporation for such objects would be \u201ccomparable\u201d to the age of the universe. As a result, these ancient black holes may have been leaking neutrinos to the observable section of the universe, the researchers added.<\/p>\n The jury is still out <\/p>\n Experts expressed concerns about the new work to Scientific American<\/a>, given its highly theoretical nature. However, physicists who also previously<\/a> attributed the 2023 signal to primordial black holes were more sympathetic. For example, Andrea Thamm at the University of Massachusetts said it gave \u201cvery nice explanations for several things that we have evidence for,\u201d whereas David Kaiser at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology noted it \u201cstill looks beautifully consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhich doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s right,\u201d Kaiser added. \u201cBut it is using some really off-the-shelf, more typical elements that are woven into many parts of our understanding of black hole physics.\u201d<\/p>\n Then again, it\u2019s not like scientists have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the signal came from easier-to-explain astrophysical sources. Not yet. So for now, many things could be fair game\u2014and we know the universe loves surprises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2023, the KM3NeT neutrino detector picked up an impossibly powerful signal\u2014tens of thousands of times more energetic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[399,401,403,111,139,69,147,16919],"class_list":["post-621550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-astrophysics","tag-cosmology","tag-neutrinos","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-string-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}