Lifeboat Foundation

There is reason to believe that novel physics outside the standard model may be on the horizon.

When two neutron stars merge, a short-lived, hot, dense remnant is created. This residue provides an excellent environment for the synthesis of unusual particles. For a brief while, the remnant becomes far hotter than the individual stars before congealing into a larger neutron star or, depending on the original masses, a black hole.

Continue reading “Neutron star mergers: New physics signals” »

Dark matter comprises around 85% of all the matter in the universe. Although ordinary matter absorbs, reflects and emits light, dark matter cannot be seen directly, which makes its detection difficult. Its existence is inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, the material that forms stars, planets, and other objects in the cosmos.

Galaxies are made up of these two types of material The dark matter is distributed in halos, which are huge structures surrounding galaxies, while the ordinary matter is mainly present in the central regions where most of the stars are found.

Traditionally observational studies of galactic evolution have centered on the role of ordinary matter, even though it is quite a small fraction of the mass of a galaxy. For decades there have been theoretical predictions about the effect that dark matter should have on the evolution of galaxies. However, in spite of numerous efforts, there is no clear consensus about this.

European astronomers have conducted very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations of a radio jet structure in a powerful quasar known as PKS 2215+020. The collected VLBI data provide important insights into the properties of this jet, suggesting that PKS 2215+020 is a blazar. The findings were presented February 17 in the Universe journal.

Quasars, or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) are active galactic nuclei (AGN) of very high luminosity, emitting electromagnetic radiation observable in radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths.

They are among the brightest and most distant objects in the known universe, and serve as fundamental tools for numerous studies in astrophysics as well as cosmology. For instance, quasars have been used to investigate the large-scale structure of the universe and the era of reionization. They also improve our understanding of the dynamics of supermassive black holes and the intergalactic medium.

An exploration of the inverse of a black hole, a white hole and what that might mean for future physics.

The new JMG Clips channel for sleep!

Continue reading “The Bizarre Mystery of White Holes” »

If two points were ripped apart faster than light, they would no longer interact through any force of physics. Whereas a constant dark energy would leave behind already-intact objects, like clusters of galaxies, phantom energy could tear them apart. In a finite amount of time, billions of years from now, clusters would tear apart, followed by ever-smaller objects. Even atomic and nuclear bonds would not withstand the onslaught.

Eventually, space itself would dissolve in an event known as the Big Rip. Any two points, no matter how close, would be ripped infinitely far away from each other. The very structure of space-time, the causal foundations that make our universe work, would no longer behave. The universe would just break down.

However, luckily, most physicists do not believe this scenario can actually happen. For one, it’s unclear how this process of ripping interacts with the other laws of physics. For example, quarks cannot be torn apart — when you attempt to do so, you need so much energy that new quarks materialize out of the vacuum. So ripping apart quarks just might lead to other, interesting interactions.

The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) in Cambridge hosted a research programme on one of the most pressing problems in modern physics: to build a theory that can explain all the fundamental forces and particles of nature in one unifying mathematical framework. Such a theory of quantum gravity would combine two hugely successful frameworks on theoretical physics, which have so far eluded unification: quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.

The Black holes: bridges between number theory and holographic quantum information programme focusses on black holes, which play a hugely important part in this area, on something called the holographic principle, and on surprising connections to pure mathematics. This collection of articles explores the central concepts involved and gives you a gist of the cutting edge research covered by the INI programme.

Argonne’s Science 101 series takes you back to the basics, with plain-language explanations of the scientific concepts behind our pivotal discoveries and our biggest innovations.

In this Science 101 video, postdoctoral researchers Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann and Florian Kéruzoré explore two of the biggest mysteries in science: dark matter and dark energy. These strange influences seem to be stretching the universe apart and clumping stuff together in unexpected ways. Together, they make up a whopping 95% of the universe, but because we can’t see or touch them, we don’t know what they are.

Continue reading “Science 101: What are Dark Matter and Dark Energy?” »

For the first time ever, we can explain its entire existence with no new physics.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected a unique and “intensely red” supermassive black hole hidden in one of the oldest part of the universe.

Scientists proposed the reddish black hole was the outcome of an enlarged universe just 700 million years following the Big Bang, as given in a paper published this month in the journal Nature. Its colors are because of a solid layer of dust compressing a lot of its light, they said.

Whereas for the first time the cosmic monster was technically invented last year, astronomers have now spotted that it is much more massive than anything else of its type in the field, making it strange discovery that could rescript the way we think how supermassive black holes increase relative to their host galaxies.