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api 2 hours ago

The most exciting idea to me that JWST has bolstered is primordial black holes. Many models already predict them but JWST has provided the first good indirect evidence in the form of too-early galaxies. The models that predict PBHs predict that.

If they exist, they would not be constrained to stellar mass and above. There could be a population of little black holes floating around. Anything under the mass of a decent size asteroid would have evaporated by now but anything that mass and above would still exist.

They are a dark matter candidate, and one that doesn’t require new physics. But even if they don’t account for a significant amount of dark matter they still probably exist.

The most exciting thing about PBHs is that one or more may exist in our solar system. They might have been captured over billions of years. Finding them would be incredibly challenging, especially if they are low mass, but if we did it means we could directly examine and experiment on a black hole.

It could be something with the mass of a large asteroid but the size of a hydrogen atom. We could only find it by its gravitational effects. It would be utterly invisible otherwise unless it encountered matter and even then there might only be a tiny gamma ray flash, a nano accretion disc that lasts femtoseconds. We might also find smaller objects that appear to be orbiting nothing and find it that way.

Directly accessing one could allow us to test theories of quantum gravity and things like string theory, and maybe more. A black hole could be like a Rosetta Stone of deep fundamental physics.

The film Interstellar involved using plot magic to visit a black hole and solve physics, but this would allow it for real. It would just be an itty bitty one.

tomaskafka an hour ago | parent | next [-]

We could probably redirect budget for next gen particle accelerator to building an experimental platform orbiting the black hole, and get better results, right?

JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

I’m still convinced a muon collider is the best bang for the buck for a next-generation collider. It requires new engineering and could probe new physics.

pmontra 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Of course if we had a black hole in a lab (or one in a convenient orbit) we could run all sort of experiments, but which experiments exactly? We will start by throwing things at it and watch, obviously, but that's unimaginative. What are the smart experiments?

JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> which experiments exactly?

Put a bunch of charge into it to generate a naked singularity. Then look at it.

More usefully: perfect the Penrose process.

api 35 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's a few obvious things. What you've got is an almost "vertical" gravity well near the object. A smaller black hole would actually have a steeper gravity well than a large one.

(1) See how gravity behaves at those strengths and scales by firing lasers and particle beams past it, grazing the event horizon, and use that information to test quantum gravity hypotheses and things like string theory. Classical gravity predicts certain results. Quantum and non-classical theories would make different predictions. See what a quantum-scale ultra-steep gravity well like that actually does IRL.

(2) Chuck stuff into it: heavy ions, small masses with a coilgun. Measure the results: spectrum, particles emitted, etc.

(3) Chuck stuff into it in a very precise way and use its extreme near-horizon gravitational well as a particle accelerator to achieve collision energies potentially millions of times greater than the LHC. You would not be able to directly observe these collisions, but you could potentially observe stuff kicked out. Orbit it with an array of sensors and magnetic traps.

Bonus: use its gravity well to yeet small probes at interstellar velocities (a few percent 'c' or higher) for flyby missions to photograph exoplanets? I believe you could use the Oberth effect here and do something like fly very close and fire a single Orion-style nuclear pulse at a sacrificial pusher plate. The impulse would accelerate the payload to insane velocities.

No human passengers though, since the acceleration would probably do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waG8YYTwpAQ

typeofhuman an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not sure anything after the event horizon right? Since no light == no information.

prairiedogg an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What could go wrong?

api an hour ago | parent [-]

Not much.

A black hole isn't a magic cosmic vacuum cleaner. It's a dense piece of mass. An asteroid mass black hole the size of a hydrogen atom would be... an object the size of a hydrogen atom with the mass of an asteroid. You could orbit it and the orbital calculations, at a reasonable distance, would be the same as orbiting an asteroid. You just can't get too close or you get into that steep gravity well and "become physics" (spaghettification etc.).

It would have an insanely steep gravity well, but you'd have to get close to actually feel it. It would rarely interact with mass naturally. We could chuck stuff into it or fire lasers and particle beams at it to study it, of course, but to hit it we'd have to fire it at the right angle and velocity to negate the orbit and fall into it. Orbital mechanics still works the same way.

If a black hole this size flew through the Earth at high velocity, it might not even do anything. It'd be like a bullet being fired through a puff of smoke. It might leave some kind of trail if you knew exactly what to look for and where to look, something almost analogous to the trails left by particles in a chamber.

I've given this example multiple times because it illustrates the point well, I think.

If you could magically transform the Moon into a black hole of the same mass, you would now have an object of that mass about the size of a BB or a small marble orbiting the Earth right where the Moon's center of mass orbited. The tides would continue as normal, since its gravitational effects on the Earth would be the same at that distance. Probes and other objects orbiting the Moon would continue to orbit it.

You just wouldn't be able to see it anymore. If you focused a very good telescope on its location, though, you could probably see gravitational lensing of the star field behind it.

The only risk might be if a large object actually hit it, in which case the accretion disc might temporarily emit enough X-rays and gamma rays to be harmful to Earth. Not sure though. It might not be that harmful at that distance.

scotty79 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My pet theory is that supermassive black holes are older than the universe and they didn't grew much.

MichaelZuo 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Does PBH theory also predict >1 billion solar mass black holes so early?

api 38 minutes ago | parent [-]

I believe it does, due to PBHs forming seeds for early accretion, but ask a non-armchair physicist (or a good LLM).