Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Monday August 22 2016, @09:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-escape-for-sanic dept.

One of the common descriptions of black holes is that their gravitational pull is so strong, not even light can escape it. Stephen Hawking is famous for (among other things) showing that this isn't actually true. The Hawking radiation that bears his name allows matter to escape from the grip of a black hole. In fact, Hawking's work suggests that an isolated black hole would slowly evaporate away and cease to exist.

But his work remains entirely theoretical. Hawking radiation is expected to be so diffuse that we could only detect it if we could somehow find or create a black hole isolated from all other matter. But Jeff Steinhauer of Israel's Technion has been on a sometimes single-handed quest to develop a system that can accurately model a black hole's behavior. And, in a recent paper in Nature Physics, Dr. Steinhauer describes how his model system generates what appears to be Hawking radiation.

[...] The implications are significant, and Steinhauer puts them succinctly: "The measurement reported here verifies Hawking's calculation, which is viewed as a milestone in the quest for quantum gravity. The observation of Hawking radiation and its entanglement confirms important elements in the discussion of information loss in a real black hole."

Observation of quantum Hawking radiation and its entanglement in an analogue black hole (DOI: 10.1038/nphys3863) (DX)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by Kenny Blankenship on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:27AM

    by Kenny Blankenship (5712) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:27AM (#391956)

    In space, no one can hear the sound of one hand clapping.

    --
    Someday, even Killer Meteors must fail.