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The new findings could help complement research complexes such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world.
‘One of the great hopes for particle colliders like the Large Hadron Collider is that it will generate dark matter particles, but we haven’t seen any evidence yet,’ said study co-author Professor Joseph Silk, a researcher at the University of Oxford and an astrophysics professor at Johns Hopkins University. ‘That’s why there are discussions underway to build a much more powerful version, a next-generation supercollider. But nature may provide a glimpse of the future via supermassive black holes.’
Particles plunging towards black holes can reach similarly high speeds to those in colliders, and if they collide near to the black hole’s event horizon they can reach extremely high energies
Dr Andrew Mummery, Department of Physics, University of Oxford
Particle colliders shoot protons and other subatomic particles at near light speed, smashing them against each other to expose the most fundamental aspects of matter. Subtle energy flashes and debris from these clashes could reveal previously undiscovered particles, including potential candidates for dark matter, a critical but ghostly component of the universe that scientists have yet to detect. But black holes could offer an alternative approach to search for these elusive particles.
‘Particles plunging towards black holes can reach similarly high speeds to those in colliders, and if they collide near to the black hole’s event horizon they can reach extremely high energies,’ said study coauthor Dr Andrew Mummery, a theoretical physicist at the University of Oxford. ‘We recently detected X-ray photons from some of these plunging black hole flows, so we know that they are out there in nature.’
Black holes can spin around their axis like planets, but with much greater energy owing to their intense gravitational fields. Scientists are increasingly discovering that some rapidly spinning massive black holes at the centers of galaxies can release enormous outbursts of energetic particles. It’s these events that could potentially generate the same results as human-made supercolliders, the new study shows.
The researchers used simulations to show that collisions with gas plunging towards a black hole can reach extreme energies, with these collisions being much more violent than previously thought possible. Although not identical, the collisions within plunging gas are similar to what scientists create by using intense magnetic fields to accelerate particles in the circular tunnel of a high-energy particle collider.
Potentially, supermassive black holes could complement experiments carried out using high-energy particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Image credit: Brice, Maximilien © 2019 CERN
‘If supermassive black holes can generate these new particles by high-energy proton collisions, then we might get a signal on Earth, some really high-energy particle passing rapidly through our detectors,’ said Silk, who is also a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris. ‘That would be the evidence for a novel particle collider within the most mysterious objects in the universe, attaining energies that would be unattainable in any terrestrial accelerator. Something with a strange signature could even conceivably provide evidence for dark matter.’
If supermassive black holes can generate these new particles by high-energy proton collisions, then we might get a signal on Earth, some really high-energy particle passing rapidly through our detectors… Something with a strange signature could even conceivably provide evidence for dark matter.
Professor Joseph Silk, Department of Physics, University of Oxford
‘Some particles from these collisions go down the throat of the black hole and disappear forever. But because of their energy and momentum, some also come out, and it’s those that come out which are accelerated to unprecedentedly high energies,’ Silk said. ‘We figured out how energetic these beams of particles could be: as powerful as you get from a supercollider, or more. It’s very hard to say what the limit is, but they certainly are up to the energy of the newest supercollider that we plan to build, so they could definitely give us complementary results.’
According to the researchers, scientists could detect such high-energy particles by using observatories already tracking supernovae, massive black hole eruptions, and other cosmic events. These include detectors such as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in the South Pole or the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope, which recently detected the most energetic neutrino ever recorded under the Mediterranean Sea.
‘The difference between a supercollider and a black hole is that black holes are far away,’ Silk said. ‘But nevertheless, these particles will get to us.’
The study ‘Black Hole Supercolliders’ has been published in Physical Review Letters.
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