Could ripples in spacetime indicate wormholes?

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Could ripples in spacetime indicate wormholes?
Could ripples in spacetime indicate wormholes?
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Space-time, as we know today, is a physical model that complements space with an equal time dimension. Thanks to this model, a theoretical-physical structure was created, which was called the space-time continuum. It is important to note that before Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, the understanding of the fundamental laws of physics was incomplete, but the publication of general relativity in 1905 left many questions, one of which was black holes and wormholes - a "tunnel" in space-time connecting different points of space-time … And if the existence of black holes was proved several years ago, then with wormholes everything is not so unambiguous - they belong to hypothetically existing objects. But some scientists believe that we will soon be able to find them too. So, over the past few months, several scientific studies have been published at once, which offer new, intriguing ways to search for these space objects.

Interesting fact

Scientists report that a black hole orbiting a wormhole will emit a special pattern of gravitational waves - unique to wormholes.

How to find a wormhole?

To begin with, black holes and wormholes are special types of solutions to Einstein's equations that arise when the structure of spacetime is strongly warped by gravity. For example, when matter is extremely dense, the fabric of spacetime can become so curved that even light cannot escape. We call such objects black holes.

Since general relativity allows the fabric of spacetime to stretch and bend, in 1935 Einstein and his physicist colleague Nathan Rosen described how two pieces of spacetime can be connected together, creating a kind of bridge between the two universes. This is a type of wormhole, but many others have been described since then.

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The Einstein-Rosen Bridge is a section in the image that connects two sheets of space-time.

Speaking of wormholes, one cannot fail to mention gravitational waves, the existence of which was proven in 2015. The fact is that with the help of powerful detectors LIGO and VIRGO, researchers have already discovered black holes, but their next discovery could transfer wormholes from hypothetical objects to real ones. And if wormholes exist, then from the outside they may seem like black holes.

The difference between a wormhole and a black hole is that once in a black hole, an object cannot escape from it, and once in a wormhole, it will be able to walk right through it to the other side. The force we perceive as gravity is actually the result of the curvature of spacetime.

The strangeness of the universe

So, the planets revolve around the Sun because it creates a bowl shape in the fabric of space. (It is easiest to imagine the planets as balls that circle around and inside this thicket). Black holes, in turn, warp space-time into chasms so deep that nothing can leave them. But spacetime can also bend into other strange shapes, like tunnels.

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The wormhole shown here is a tunnel in spacetime connecting different parts of the universe.

These tunnels, or wormholes, could provide the shortest path between two distant places in space and time, or between two different universes. Spacetime can bend, but it can also fluctuate. These waves are called gravity waves and can indicate wormholes.

Gravitational waves, black holes and wormholes

The researchers believe that a black hole spiraling into a wormhole should create a strange ripple pattern in spacetime. And with the right instruments, some observatories could detect them.

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Entering and exiting a wormhole most likely looks like this.

Physicists came to this conclusion in a paper published in the middle of summer on the arXiv.org preprint server. The waves from the black hole-wormhole pair will flash and turn on when the black hole passes through the wormhole and then exits again. But to date, there is no evidence of the existence of these objects.

Wormholes are certainly speculative, with a capital “C,” says William Gabella. He is a physicist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. However, if wormholes do exist, researchers should have a chance to find them. It would simply require the right conditions and a gravitational wave detector.

Black hole travel through a wormhole

According to Live Science, Gabella's team examined a black hole with a mass five times the mass of the Sun. They imagined a black hole orbiting a wormhole at a distance of about 1.6 billion light years from Earth. According to their calculations, when a black hole rotates around a wormhole, it should begin to spiral inward, releasing gravitational waves.

And at first they would look exactly like gravitational waves from two black holes. The structure of the waves, which some physicists call chirps, will increase in frequency over time. But once it reaches the center of the wormhole, or "neck," the black hole will pass through it.

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The Einstein-Rosen Bridge as seen by the artist.

The researchers then looked at what would happen if a black hole emerged in a distant location. For example, in another universe. In this case, the gravitational waves in the first universe would suddenly stop, and in the second universe, the black hole would "shoot" outward before spiraling again. She then has to go all the way back through the wormhole and back into the first universe.

When the black hole returns, it will first spiral out of the wormhole. This can cause an “anti-chirp” - a pattern of gravitational waves opposite to chirping - before plunging into this state again, - the authors of the scientific paper write.

Over time, the black hole will continue to hop between the two universes, which should cause repeated bursts of gravitational waves. But there would be periods of silence in between - once the black hole loses enough energy to create gravitational waves, its journey ends and it settles in the neck of the wormhole.

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