Black holes swallow up everything, and nothing escapes. This property, the most iconic characteristic of these mysterious space phenomena, had its first major challenge this week when Technion professor Jeff Steinhauer posted the results of an experiment. He simulated a black hole in the lab.

The idea that perhaps black holes do let some particles escape has been around for a long time now, since 1974 when Stephen Hawking's calculations using quantum methods showed that black holes actually "radiate" particles back into outer space, and eventually disappear entirely. Due to the difficulty of calculating this delicate radiation through the depths of space, Hawking Radiation has remained a theory in the 42 years since, but Steinhauer's new experiment may bring it closer than ever to being proven.

In his experiment, the Israeli physicist created a simulated "black hole" capable of sucking in sound. To do this, Stenhauer shot a laser composed of rubidium atoms through an environment cooled to almost absolute zero. The atoms were moving faster than the speed of sound, making it difficult for sound to make its way through the stream.

"It's like trying to swim against the river," Steinhauer said. "If the river is going faster than you can swim, you go backwards, even though you feel like you're going forward." This means that part of the sound wave is pushed out of the "black hole," defying the scientific consensus on what may happen in real black holes.

The theory of Hawking Radiation is based on "virtual particles," the analogues of particles like photons described by quantum mechanics. Based on Steinhauer's experiment, it's possible that in a black hole, a photon may be sucked in while its partner virtual particle is radiated out into space. This is what Hawking's theory proposes. "What I saw suggests that a real black hole might emit something," Steinhauer said. If this is true, and Hawking Radiation is proven to exist, Stephen Hawking may finally win his first Nobel Prize for his work 40 years ago.

Steinhauer's paper is yet to be published, and is up on the pre-publishing platform arXiv.org right now for peer review. The initial reactions have been both positive and skeptical.

"The experiments are beautiful," physicist Silke Weinfurtner from the University of Nottingham told The Telegraph. "Jeff has done an amazing job, but some of the claims he makes are open to debate. This is worth discussing."

Source: Space.com

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