Such an explosion would strongly suggest the existence of primordial black holes (PBHs), theoretical objects formed in the first second after the Big Bang. Unlike stellar black holes, PBHs could be light enough to emit Hawking radiation and eventually explode, releasing a catalog of all known and unknown particles.
"This would be the first-ever direct observation of both Hawking radiation and a PBH," explained Joaquim Iguaz Juan, postdoctoral researcher in physics at UMass Amherst. "We can see it with our current crop of telescopes, and because the only black holes that can explode today or in the near future are these PBHs, we know that if we see Hawking radiation, we are seeing an exploding PBH."
The researchers used a "dark-QED toy model," a theoretical framework that introduces a heavy particle dubbed the "dark electron." Their analysis suggests that PBHs with a small dark electric charge could be temporarily stabilized before exploding. This mechanism significantly increases the likelihood of detecting an event within years instead of millennia.
"The lighter a black hole is, the hotter it should be and the more particles it will emit," noted Andrea Thamm, assistant professor of physics at UMass Amherst. "As PBHs evaporate, they become ever lighter, and so hotter, emitting even more radiation in a runaway process until explosion. It's that Hawking radiation that our telescopes can detect."
Michael Baker, co-author and assistant professor of physics, emphasized readiness: "We're not claiming that it's absolutely going to happen this decade, but there could be a 90% chance that it does. Since we already have the technology to observe these explosions, we should be ready."
If detected, such an explosion would revolutionize physics, providing a definitive record of every fundamental particle and rewriting scientific understanding of the universe's earliest moments.
Research Report:Could We Observe an Exploding Black Hole in the Near Future?
Related Links
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Understanding Time and Space
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