Recently, scientists used the power of computers to replicate what happens when two black holes run into each other at very high speeds in space. According to an astrophysicist, it is one of the most powerful forces that can occur in the universe!
Thomas Helfer, a scientist from Johns Hopkins University, said that it is quite an unusual thing to make two black holes collide with each other close to the speed of light. Even if the event looks dull, it is actually one of the most powerful events you can find in space!
Scientists recently discovered that when two black holes crash together, they form a new remnant black hole which helps to directs ripples known as gravitational waves through space. This was published in Physical Review Letters and it is the first time anyone has done a detailed investigation about what happens after these collisions.
Black holes merging is really powerful and releases energy so strong that we can detect it as something called gravitational waves. Just like ripples in a pond, these gravitational waves travel through space and time changing the shape of both at the same time – this combined idea is what’s called “spacetime”. However, unlike waves you may see on water, these ones are very small.
This simulation shows us the powerful effects of two black holes crashing into each other like a huge explosion. Scientists call it one of the most destructive forces we can see in space. This experiment was the first time anyone has studied what happens when this happens and shows how a new black hole is formed, even sending out ripples from across the universe called gravitational waves. Credit: Simulation by Thomas Helfer/Johns Hopkins University.
Emanuele Berti, a physicist from Johns Hopkins University said that if a gravitational wave passes through me, it will make me very slightly shorter and skinnier, then again very slightly taller and wider. However, this is 100,000 times less than the size of an atomic nucleus.
Scientists have been studying the waves made when black holes come together by simplifying Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity into simpler equations that don’t take into account certain important influences that the merger has. But, according to Berti, this strategy is problematic because it assumes that the gravitational waves produced during the merger are weak.
It is very unlikely for two black holes to smash into each other with such extreme speed. But when scientists simulated this crash, surprisingly the signals were strong enough for researchers to notice that there were unusual ‘gravitational effects’, which regular theories cannot explain. This means current models of black hole mergers may need some fixing or even total replacement.
Mark Ho-Yeuk Cheung, a researcher from Johns Hopkins University, shared that in General Relativity, gravity waves make more and more gravity waves.
The team found something unusual while studying a simulation of two black holes circling each other, similar to what really takes place in the universe. Another group of researchers at Caltech had the same findings that appear in Physical Review Letters.
Cheung said it’s really important to understand black holes because trying to figure out Einstein’s theories is tough. His equations are complicated and hard to work out.
This study was supported by Croucher Foundation, National Science Foundation, and NASA. A team of 11 experts wrote the paper “Nonlinear Effects in Black Hole Ringdown” and it was published on 22 February 2023 in Physics Review Letters journal. The DOI number is 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.081401
We used computer resources from the Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center and the Texas Advanced Computing Center to do this work.
