Scientists propose utilizing black holes as alternatives for earthbound particle colliders amidst looming budget reductions.
In the face of astronomical costs, lengthy construction periods, and the Trump administration's slashing of federal science funding, physicists are exploring cheaper alternatives for the next generation of particle supercolliders - delving into the enigma of black holes.
Originally, scientists envisioned that the elusive particles composing dark matter would be ejected from high-energy proton collisions within CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). However, no such detection has been made thus far.
Finding dark matter might mean enduring decades until new, higher-energy supercolliders are built. Or it could mean looking at violent collisions within the swiftly moving accretion disks surrounding colossal black holes, according to a team of researchers. Published June 3 in the journal Physical Review Letters, they suggest our answers could lie in these cosmic collisions.
Joseph Silk, an astrophysics professor at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Oxford, U.K., stated, "That's why there are discussions underway to build a much more powerful version, a next-generation supercollider. But as we invest $30 billion and wait 40 years to build this supercollider - nature may provide a glimpse of the future in supermassive black holes."
Particle colliders crash particles together at near-light speeds, causing interactions that briefly reveal the universe's most fundamental elements as high-energy debris. From these collisions, the LHC discovered the Higgs' Boson in 2012, the elusive particle responsible for giving all others their mass.
Yet, despite this discovery (and numerous others contributing to the development of the internet, computing, and some cancer therapies), the LHC has yet to produce dark matter. Perhaps because it is incapable of reaching the energies required to produce its particles.
One of the cosmos's most mysterious components, dark matter makes up roughly 27% of its missing content. It doesn't interact with light, so it has yet to be directly detected. This makes the search for dark matter particles all the more intriguing.
Seeking a new source for these particles, the researchers behind the study looked to black holes. Observations suggest that rapidly spinning black holes can eject massive jets of plasma from their accretion disks.
According to the researchers' calculations, these jets could be far more powerful than initially thought - enabling particles to collide at similar energy levels as those projected for future supercolliders. "Some particles from these collisions go down the throat of the black hole and disappear forever," Silk said. "But because of their energy and momentum, some also come out, and it's those that come out which are accelerated to unprecedentedly high energies."
To detect these particles speeding from black hole collisions, the researchers propose using observatories designed to study supernovae like the South Pole's IceCube Neutrino Observatory or the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope. "If supermassive black holes can generate these particles by high-energy proton collisions, then we might get a signal on Earth, some really high-energy particle passing rapidly through our detectors," Silk said. "That would be the evidence for a novel particle collider within the most mysterious objects in the universe, attaining energies that would be unattainable in any terrestrial accelerator."
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- Rather than relying on the construction of expensive and time-consuming future supercolliders, physicists are investigating black holes as potential collision sites for dark matter particles.
- A team of researchers published a study in the Physical Review Letters, suggesting that our answers to the dark matter mystery might come from cosmic collisions within accretion disks surrounding supermassive black holes.
- While the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) discovered the Higgs Boson and contributed to the development of technology like the internet and some cancer therapies, it has yet to produce dark matter.
- The researchers believe that jets of plasma ejected from spinning black holes' accretion disks could collide at similar energy levels as those projected for future supercolliders, providing a novel method for particle collisions.
- To detect potential dark matter particles from black hole collisions, the researchers propose using observatories like the South Pole's IceCube Neutrino Observatory or the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope. A high-energy particle passing through these detectors could signal the presence of a new type of particle collider hidden within black holes.
