WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Scientists may be able to create miniature black holes in particle accelerators here on Earth.
"If we could produce black holes using particle accelerators like the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in Switzerland, it would allow researchers to learn more about the nature of space and time," Steven B. Giddings, professor of physics at the University of California Santa Barbara, told United Press International.
"Of course, this is exciting because black holes are some of the most profoundly mysterious objects in universe. Creating them in a collider would show us a great deal about the fundamental structure of matter."
The theories used to guide Gidding's hypothesis that black holes can be formed in man-made machines go collectively by the name "TeV-scale gravity."
"TeV-scale gravity refers to the energy that is required (to make the black holes)," said Gidding. "TeV is quite a high energy, about the level required to produce a fairly large protein molecule. Or another way to say it, it's roughly 1,000 times the energy contained in a proton."
The colliders are able to reach those energy levels.
Black holes are hypothetical objects possessing gravitational fields so strong that light cannot escape from it. They are thought to be formed when very massive stars lose their nuclear fuel source and collapse.
Physicist Stephen Hawking discovered the fact that black holes evaporate and that smaller ones do so in a tiny amount of time, about 10 to the minus 17 seconds. That process causes the black hole to become hot and explode, sending out small amounts of radiation that scientists might be able to detect if they can simulate black holes.
"I think it is very interesting," said Roeland Van Der Marel, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. "It of course remains to be seen whether it is feasible and the researchers seem to leave that possibility open."
Van Der Marel said black holes are typically studied either by physicists studying theories or by astronomers who observe areas surrounding black holes in space.
"You never really observe a black hole directly," he said.
Van Der Marel said that physicists since Einstein, including the famed scientist himself, have labored to develop a theory that unites theories of gravity with quantum mechanics, or how phenomena behave on the ultra-tiny level.
"One of the holy grails of theoretical physics has been to develop this unified theory and these small black holes could help that attempt," said Van Der Marel.
Gidding said that in addition to possibly reconciling quantum mechanics with gravity, black holes could let researchers learn about extra dimensions of space and time. He said they could also shed new light on current ideas about the nature of space and time at short distances.
