A recent University graduate has collaborated with a veteran University professor to shed light upon an obscure subject: black holes.
Under physics professor emeritus John Wheeler, Daniel Holz '92, a postdoctoral student at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California-Santa Barbara, ended his undergraduate career with a senior thesis on the creation of black holes through gravitational waves.
A decade later, Holz and Wheeler have again combined efforts to develop a way of detecting black holes.
Black holes are regions of space which result from the collapse of a star. Because of their physical characteristics, black holes can be difficult to find. Because they are not easy to find, black holes are often not identified by their mass and size but by their effects on their environment.
Holz and Wheeler's idea of identifying black holes relies on a large light source like the sun. Light cannot escape black holes.
However, the uncanny gravitational force of black holes is strong enough to bend incoming light. Light actually loops around the black hole, perhaps many times, appearing as a ring of light.
The sun, the Earth and the black hole, in that order, must be nearly perfectly aligned for the detection of the black hole to be successful, Holz said.
As the sun's light traverses the globe and approaches a black hole, the light will theoretically loop around the black hole making it possible for an observer on Earth to see the light. This event is related to what astrophysicists refer to as retro-MACHOs — massive halo objects.
MACHOs indicate events in which stars appear to become brighter and then become dimmer. Retro-MACHOs, by contrast, indicate events in which stars actually appear, then disappear.
In addition to simply observing stars seemingly come into existence, Holz and Wheeler believe someone can detect black holes appearing and disappearing.
The discovery of an approaching black hole, an inescapable cosmological juggernaut, would possibly cause ubiquitous panic on Earth.
Wheeler, who coined the term "black hole," has made one suggestion to distort an approaching black hole's path. Hydrogen bombs could be used to alter the orbit of the black hole, said Wheeler, who worked on both atomic and hydrogen bomb projects.
A slight push would be sufficient if the black hole were far enough from Earth. The distance created by a slight change in angle would accrue to a more than adequate area from Earth.
Holz said he believes the likelihood of a black hole coming close enough to cause any harm is small. Jupiter, an extremely massive planet, guards Earth to some extent. Holz said he worries more about the sun burning out and global warming than he does about a black hole destroying the planet.
But he said he studies black holes because "black holes are cool," and because these enigmatic entities are a good testbed for statistical experimentation.
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