Black hole created from light

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr. Friedrich König used high-intensity light pulses to create an artificial 'event horizon' - a feature that identifies a black hole and is also called ' landmark cannot be returned '. This success allows scientists to verify Stephen Hawking's theory that black holes are actually not black at all but shine. The work will be published in the journal Science .

This is the first time scientists have succeeded in activating an event horizon using light. However, there is no danger as scientists are sucked into space by an extremely strong gravitational force, because this device only works on light in optical fibers and is completely harmless.

Their illustration of the physical phenomena behind the event horizon, which measured the change of light, is described as ' an important milestone '.

Scientists achieve this achievement by projecting a laser beam onto an optical fiber - with different wavelengths of light moving at different speeds, creating distortion that causes a stream of light waves to be hold back - a black hole with an event horizon must not escape.

Scientists use ultrashort light pulses in microstructure optical fibers to illustrate the formation of an artificial event horizon.This image captures light at the end of the optical fiber.(Photo: Chris Kuklewicz)

The ' optical fiber black hole ', created by the University of St Andrews team, allows physicists to find out what will happen to the light on either side of an event horizon - something they described as ' an almost impossible success in celestial physics '.

Describing the work as a 'scientific adventure and a great challenge', Professor Leonhardt, of the University's School of Physics & Astronomy, said: 'Create a model of simulated legs The event is an exciting adventure with many ups and downs, hope and disappointment, a predetermined adventure will continue. Until now, most of this is still a theory, but we have succeeded initially in simulating the physical laboratory of horizons for light. '

' We use ultrashort light pulses in microstructure optical fibers to illustrate the creation of an artificial event horizon in optics . We created the simulation of the horizon - not the real black hole - can only interact with light in the fiber, and we observed a classic optical impact, the blue shift of light at a white hole horizon. '

Previous researchers compared the event of a black hole with a river flowing into a waterfall. A horizon (landmark cannot be returned) is formed at the point where the river moves faster than the speed of the water wave. Instead of water, scientists at St Andrews decided to use light because of their uncompetitive strengths: light is the purest and simplest quantum object, creating optical fiber horizons. including, pure glass, light and air.

Scientists say event horizons are not difficult to create and long-distance phone calls can create them without callers noticing.

Professor Leonhardt explains: 'You can simulate an event horizon in the kitchen. Just let the water from the tap flow into a flat surface until a wave of water waves appears - the water inside the ring flows faster and smoother than the waves around it, making waves unable to get inside. country. Instead, water flows outwards and is slower. Wave rings form in circles where water slows down the speed of waves. This circle represents a white hole horizon. '

'This happens all the time in optical telecommunications, in which information is transmitted by light pulses that change the speed of light - whenever people communicate via optical fiber, use the internet or making long distance calls, they created countless artificial event horizons, a kind of side reaction without even knowing it. The front end of each electrical impulse produces a black hole horizon, an area where light cannot escape, while the trailing tail acts as a white hole horizon, an area where light cannot enter. . '

Scientists hope that by using advanced laser systems and optical fibers, their horizon will eventually be strong enough to observe Hawking's radiation theory.