A recent paper published in Physics Letters B has elevated the prospect that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could mark a discovery that would put its earlier achievements with the Higgs Boson in the shadow. The authors of the recent published paper suggest it could detect mini black holes. Such a discovery would be a matter of enormous importance on its own, but might be a sign of even more important things. Few ideas from theoretical physics capture the public imagination as much as the “many-worlds theory,” which proposes an infinite number of universes that vary from our own in ways small and large.
The idea has delivered great feedstuff for science fiction novelists and comedians. However, according to Professor Mir Faizal from the University of Waterloo, "Normally, when people think of the multiverse, they think of the many-worlds clarification of quantum mechanics, where every possibility is realized," he told Phys.org. "This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science." However, Faizal returns the test for a different type of parallel universes nearly within our reach.
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| Image credit: Mopic via Shutterstock. If gravity is draining out of tiny black holes into other dimensions, the LHC may find it |
Faizal says “What we mean is real universes in extra dimensions. As gravity can flow out of our universe into the extra dimensions, such a model can be tested by the detection of mini black holes at the LHC.”
The concept that the universe may be full with minute black holes has been proposed to illuminate puzzles such as the nature of dark matter. However, the energy mandatory to generate such objects relays on the number of dimensions the universe has. In a predictable four-dimensional universe, these holes would need 1016 TeV, 15 orders of magnitude beyond the capability of the LHC to create. String theory, on the other hand, proposes 10 dimensions, six of which have been wrapped up so we can't observe them. Efforts to model such a universe suggest that the energy required to make these minute black holes would be a great deal smaller, so much so that some scientists believe they should have been spotted in experiments the LHC has already run.
So if no discovery, no string theory? Not according to Mr. Faizal and his co-authors. They claim that the models used to forecast the energy of the black holes in a 10-dimensional universe have left out quantum twist of space-time that changes gravity slightly.
Whether this alteration is actual is a swiftly developing question, but if it is, the paper claims that the black holes will have energy levels significantly smaller than in a four-dimensional universe, but about twice as large as that obvious for any test run so far. The LHC is intended to reach 14 TeV, but so far has only gone to 5.3 TeV, although the paper reflects the holes might be prowling at 11.9 TeV. In this situation, once the LHC touches its full capacity, we should find them.
Such discovery would determine the micro scale distortion of space-time, the occurrence of extra dimensions, parallel universes within them and string theory. If discovered at the right energy levels, the holes would approve the group's explanation of a new theory on black hole behavior named gravity's rainbow, after the important novel. Such an amazing quadruple disclosure would alter physics, even though the researchers are already bearing in mind the most likely errors in their work if the holes prove indefinable.
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