Five-Dimensional Black Hole Could 'Break' General Relativity

Researchers Successful in Simulating Black Hole

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London have been successful in simulating a black hole in the shape of a very thin ring giving rise to a series of `bulges’ that are linked by strings which tend to get thin over a period of time.

The strings ultimately become so thin that they pinch off into a sequence of tiny black hole identical to how a thin stream of water from a tap tends to break into droplets. In 2002, ring-shaped black holes were discovered by theoretical physicists. However, this is the first time that its dynamics has been simulated successfully on utilising supercomputers.

If this kind of black hole tends to form, it would lead in the appearance of a `naked singularity’ causing the equation behind general relativity to break down. The result of the same had been published in the journal – Physical Review Letters. General relativity supports the present understanding of gravity which is everything from the estimation of the age of the stars in the universe to the GPS signals we tend to depend on, while navigating and is based on Einstein’s equation.

Singularity – A Point where Gravity is Intense

The theory, partly informs us, that matter distortions its surrounding space-time and what is known as gravity is the outcome of that distortion. Since it was published in the 100 years, general relativity had passed through every test which had been thrown at it though one of its restrictions is the presence of singularities. Singularity is a point wherein gravity seems to be so intense that space, time as well as the laws of physics tends to break down. General relativity forecasts that singularities occur towards the centre of black holes and tends to be surrounded by an event horizon which is the point of no return where gravitational pull becomes very strong.

 Escape seems impossible which means that it cannot be observed from outside. Markus Kunesch, study co-author and a PhD student at Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics – DAMTP said that as long as singularities remains hidden behind an event horizon, they do not tend to cause trouble and general relativity holds the cosmic censorship conjecture and this is always the case.

As long as the cosmic censorship conjecture tends to be valid, they can safely forecast the future outside the black holes. Since ultimately what is being done in physics is to forecast the future given knowledge regarding the state of the universe now’.

Physicist Researching General Relativity in Higher Dimension

We tend to think of the universe prevailing in three dimensions and the fourth dimension of time, which when combined is referred as space-time. However, in branches of theoretical physics like string theory, the universe could be of as many as 11 dimensions.

Extra dimensions can be big and expansive or it could be curled up, tiny as well as hard to notice and because human can directly only see three dimensions, the presence of extra dimensions can only be concluded through high energy experiments like those directed at Large Hadron Collider.

The theory of Einstein does not state how many dimensions seem to be in the universe. Hence theoretical physicists have been researching general relativity in higher dimension to check if cosmic censorship still tends to hold. The finding of ring-shaped holes in five dimensions has directed the researchers to hypothesise that they can break up and lead to a naked singularity.