Inside every black hole there should be hidden a physical singularity – the point at which the curvature of space reaches infinity. The laws of physics should just stop working in it. However, scientists have recently proposed an alternative theory in which none of this is the case.
Black hole
Recently, a group of scientists from the Institute of Fundamental Physics in Trieste suggested that the main theory describing black holes may be wrong. They published their guess in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
The very concept of a black hole is closely related to the theory of relativity. When Albert Einstein published it, Karl Schwarzschild based his findings on his conclusions that under certain conditions the concentration of mass can reach such a magnitude that a surface is formed that even sunlight cannot overcome.
Such a sphere has been called an event horizon, because if even light cannot escape from it, there is no way to convey to the outside what is happening inside. And it was only half the problem. The second was that there would also have to be a physical singularity inside the black hole.
This is the name given to the region of space where its curvature becomes infinite. It would seem that after a sphere from which information cannot escape, this is a trifle. But physical theory simply cannot describe a space of infinite curvature. It turns out that the ordinary laws of nature simply do not apply there.
Black holes in the Universe
For a long time, all this remained a purely theoretical problem. For several decades after Schwarzschild, no one saw any black holes, so worrying about the challenges they posed to physics was not worth it.
However, a lot has changed since then. Scientists have obtained evidence for the existence of black holes in binary systems, captured gravitational waves from their merger, and even obtained images of accretion disks around them.
Black holes exist. So, all the problems related to their physics also exist. After all, the situation when science cannot describe something, such as a physical singularity, and also fundamentally has no way to observe it, is absolutely abnormal.
New theory
And it was this situation that prompted the researchers to start work. They did not deny the very concept of a black hole and all the effects that are now being observed. But they tried to see if it is possible to explain all this without singularity, or even without event horizon. And they did.
The paper contains two new physics models. The first one describes a black hole with an event horizon but without singularity, while the second one describes a simulator that has neither singularity nor event horizon, but corresponds to all modern observations. In addition, the researchers were able to describe how real black holes and mimics can turn into each other.
According to phys.org
