Impossibly powerful ‘ghost particle’ that slammed into Earth may have come from an exploding black hole — and could change both particle physics and cosmology

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It may have an incredibly powerful “ghost particle” that recently crashed into Earth they come from a rare type of exploding black holeclaim the researchers.

If true, the extraordinary event may prove a theory that could change our understanding of both particle physics and dark matterargues the team. However, this is just a theory and there is no direct evidence to confirm that this is indeed what happened.

In early 2023, researchers at the Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT)—a massive, newly built array of sensors on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea—detected a neutrino, a ghostly particle that has almost no mass and does not readily interact with most matter.

In addition to the typical strangeness of neutrinos, this particular particle was remarkable for its unusual intensity. It hit our planet with a estimated energy of up to 220 quadrillion electron voltswhich is at least 100 times more powerful than any other neutrino detected to date, and about 100,000 times more powerful than anything seen in man-made particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Explaining the impossible

Initially, researchers weren’t sure what caused this “impossible” neutrino to appear. He may have been born when a cosmic ray entered Earth’s atmosphere, unleashing a cascade of high energy particles that rained on the surface of the planet. However, its unprecedented power has led experts to assume that it must have originated from a high-energy cosmic event that we do not fully understand.

In the new paper, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Lettersa research group believes they have finally identified what really gave birth to the neutrino: an exploding primordial black hole (PBH).

PBHs are a hypothetical class of black holes that are extremely small—ranging from the size of an atom to a pinhead—and probably date back to the first moments after the Big Bang. The concept was first popularized by British physicist Stephen Hawking in the early 1970s, who also suggested that these miniature singularities would they emit large amounts of high-energy particlescalled Hawking radiation as they slowly evaporated. In theory, this would also mean they have the ability to explode.

“The lighter a black hole is, the hotter it should be and the more particles it will emit,” the study co-author. Andrea Thamma theoretical physicist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in a statement. “As PBHs evaporate, they become lighter and hotter, emitting even more radiation in a vaporized-to-explosion process.”

One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the impossible neutrino, aside from its immense power, is that it has not been observed by other neutrino detectors around the world, such as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. buried beneath the icy surface of Antarctica. Given that PBHs are should be quite common throughout the universe, we would reasonably expect equally powerful particles to have been detected before or after this possible discovery, especially as the number of neutrino detectors. growing rapidly.

The researchers said this is because the neutrino was emitted by a special type of PBH, called a quasi-extreme PBH, which has a “dark charge” – a version of the ordinary electric force that includes a hypothetical very heavy version of the electron called a “dark electron”.

The dark properties of this theoretical type of PBH make the explosions of these black holes less likely to be detected, the researchers suggested. It could also be that some of the less powerful neutrinos detected so far are partially incomplete detections of these events, they added.

“A PBH with a dark charge has unique properties and behaves in different ways than other simpler PBH models,” Thamm said. “We have shown that this can provide an explanation of all the apparently inconsistent experimental data.”

Changing Cosmic Understanding

While the new research suggests the existence of quasi-extreme PBHs, it does not confirm them or prove that they explode as researchers believe. (Ordinary PBHs have never been directly observed either, although there is one strong consensus that they exist.)

However, the team is confident that it won’t take long to prove that these dark bursts are real. The same research group recently predicted this there is a 90% chance. we will see the first quasi-extreme PBH explode by 2035, which would be extremely interesting for two main reasons.

First, these explosions would be so powerful that they would likely emit “a definitive catalog of all existing subatomic particles,” including known entities such as the Higgs boson; theorized particles such as gravitons or time traveling tachyons; and “all that is, so far, completely unknown to science,” the researchers wrote in the statement.

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Second, these black holes could help reveal the mysterious identity of dark matter—the invisible stuff we can’t see but whose gravitational force that we can detect in almost every observed galaxy, including the Milky Way. Quasi-extreme PBHs “could constitute all the observed dark matter in the universe,” the researchers wrote, so finding one could help put this mystery to bed. (Despite the similar names, dark matter is not directly related to dark charge or dark electrons.)

The researchers, together with several other teams in the fields of physics and cosmologythey are now holding their collective breath to see when the first explosion might be detected.

This “incredible event” would provide a “new window on the universe” and help us “explain this otherwise inexplicable phenomenon,” the study’s lead author. Michael Bakera theoretical physicist at UMass Amherst, said in the statement.