An invisible, split-second blast reveals a new chapter in lightning physics.
Category: physics
In a new Physical Review Letters study, researchers have successfully followed a gravitational wave’s complete journey from the infinite past to the infinite future as it encounters a black hole.
Reported by scientists from the University of Otago and the University of Canterbury, the study represents the first time anyone has captured the full cause-and-effect relationship of gravitational wave scattering in a single simulation.
The researchers are tackling the scattering problem in gravitational physics. In other words, they want to understand what happens to gravitational waves when they encounter massive objects (like black holes) and scatter off them.
Located in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), these filaments could be a part of a cyclical process in one of the galaxy’s most mysterious regions.
Discover the fifth state of matter, beyond solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. This is a quantum leap in physics with groundbreaking scientific potential.
Tête de Moine, a semi-hard Swiss cheese that often finds its way onto charcuterie boards and salads, not only brings a rich, nutty and creamy flavor, but also adds a dramatic flare to the presentation. Instead of slicing, this cheese is shaved into delicate rosettes using a tool called a Girolle whose rotating blade gently scrapes thin layers of cheese into ruffled curls. These pretty cheese flowers are known to enhance the flavor and texture due to their high surface-to-volume ratio.
The unusual way Tête de Moine forms wrinkles when shaved, piqued the interest of a team of physicists who, in a study published in Physical Review Letters, set out to investigate the physical mechanisms behind these intricate shapes.
Similar morphogenetic patterns can be observed in the frilly edges of leaves, fungi, corals, or even torn plastic sheets, but the mechanisms that explain the similar shapes in these materials fail to account for the distinctive physical properties of cheese.
Black hole and Big Bang singularities break our best theory of gravity. A trilogy of theorems hints that physicists must go to the ends of space and time to find a fix.
The researcher added that with better data on the horizon, including the first public data on galaxy clustering from DESI released last week, the team will re-apply their methods, compare their results with their current findings, and detect any statistically significant differences.
“I think there are more questions than answers at this point,” Chen said. “This research certainly enforces the idea that different cosmological datasets are beginning to be in tension when interpreted within the standard Λ CDM model of cosmology.”
Almost every galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center. When galaxies merge, the two black holes spiral in closer to each other and eventually merge through gravitational-wave emission. Within a few billion years, this process will be featured close to home as our own Milky-Way will collide with its nearest massive neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy.
If the two black holes have different masses, the emission of gravitational waves is asymmetric, causing the merger product to recoil. The intense burst of gravitational waves in a preferred direction during the final plunge of the two black holes towards each other, kicks the remnant black hole in the opposite direction through the rocket effect. The end result is that gravitational waves propel the black hole remnant to speeds of up to a few percent of the speed of light. The recoiling black hole behaves like the payload of a rocket powered by gravitational waves.
In 2007, I published a single-authored paper in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters, suggesting that a gravitational-wave recoil could displace a black hole from the galactic center and endow it with fast motion relative to the background stars. If the kick is modest, dynamical friction on the background gas or stars would eventually return the black hole back to the center.
Physicists demonstrate a time mirror for the first time, reversing electromagnetic waves in a laboratory led by Dr. Hussein Moussa.