Casadio suggests that this can be imagined as a piece of paper with a little hole in it. “This shows how singularities are theoretical barriers preventing us from completely comprehending nature.”
Casadio adds that the fact that physics stops to exist at singularities leads to unanswered questions such as: What actually took place at the beginning of the universe? What takes place to a particle when it falls into the center of a black hole?
Among the significant issues in general relativity that separates it from other descriptions of deep space, like quantum physics, is the presence of singularities. Singularities are points that when mathematically explained offer an unlimited value and recommend locations of deep space where the laws of physics would stop to exist– i.e. points at the start of deep space and at the center of great voids.
A new paper in Nuclear Physics B, published by Roberto Casadio, Alexander Kamenshchik, and Iberê Kuntz from the Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Italy, recommends that extending the treatment of singularities in classical physics into quantum physics could help to solve this disparity in between branches of physics.
” No description of nature is total and ideal. Every theory has its domain of applicability, beyond which it breaks down and its forecasts no longer make good sense,” Casadio says. As an example, he cites Newtons theories, which are still robust enough to send out rockets to space, however fall down when explaining the extremely small, or the greatly massive.
A new quantum method to the problem of singularities could respond to the question of what happens at the center of a great void like this one found in the galaxy M87. Credit: EHT
” This is a severe issue because basic relativity– the theory that finest explains the gravitational interaction at present– forecasts the presence of singularities quite generically,” Casadio says. “It is like having a hole in area, where absolutely nothing can exist, however into which observers and everything else will fall however.”
Casadio recommends that this can be imagined as a paper with a small hole in it. “You can move the tip of your pen on the paper, which represents the movement of a particle, however if you reach the hole your pen unexpectedly stops drawing and the particles all of a sudden vanish,” he states. “This illustrates how singularities are theoretical barriers avoiding us from fully understanding nature.”
Casadio includes that the fact that physics disappears at singularities causes unanswered questions such as: What truly happened at the start of deep space? Was everything substantiated of a point that never actually existed? What occurs to a particle when it falls into the center of a black hole?
” These open questions are the very factor we are obliged by our interest to pursue this line of investigation,” he states. “Our technique greatly counts on the methods of Quantum field theory (QFT): the framework that integrates quantum mechanics and special relativity and gives rise to the extremely effective standard model of particle physics.”
The authors utilized the tools of QFT to build a mathematical object that can signify the existence of singularities in experimentally quantifiable amounts. This object, which they have actually called the “functional winding number” is non-zero in the existence of singularities and vanishes in their lack.
This technique has exposed that certain singularities anticipated theoretically do not impact quantities that can in principle be determined experimentally, and for that reason stay safe mathematical constructs.
” If our formalism made it through clinical examination and turned out to be the proper method, it would suggest the presence of a really deep physical concept, so the choices of physical variables are rather unimportant,” Casadio concludes. “This could be consequential for our understanding of physics, even beyond the topic of singularities.”
Reference: “Covariant singularities in quantum field theory and quantum gravity” by Roberto Casadio, Alexander Kamenshchik and Iberê Kuntz, 26 July 2021, Nuclear Physics B.DOI: 10.1016/ j.nuclphysb.2021.115496.