Black holes create mysterious swirling 'structures' that could open 'gateways' into dark matter

A new study of the microscopic structure of black holes promises to open up opportunities to solve cosmic mysteries, physicists say .

Black holes are regions of spacetime with gravitational fields so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape them. As a result, most of these massive objects drift invisibly through space, making it difficult to resolve many open questions about their mind-bending properties.

Black holes are regions in spacetime with strong gravitational fields from which nothing can escape.

Scientists now think there is a way to confirm a key mystery about black holes and whether they create vortex structures. It is all about looking for specific signs in space. These vortices would have a similar structure to the swirling maelstroms of tornadoes and whirlpools, but instead they would arise in multiple places above the black hole.

In addition to shedding light on black holes, these clues have the potential to open 'an observational window into other hidden realms' of the universe, including the nature of dark matter.

While popular depictions of black holes often make them look like giant space vortices, the presence of vortices in these entities is a matter of much debate. A team led by Gia Dvali, director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Germany, presented new theoretical evidence that rapidly rotating black holes 'naturally support vortex structures' and that the black hole's vortex forces could have 'observable consequences'.

'The microscopic structure of black holes is still poorly understood. One of the main obstacles is the lack of experimental probes of the quantum properties of black holes. It is important to identify and explore microscopic theories that lead to macroscopic observable phenomena,' Dvali and his colleagues said.

'We will help increase awareness of the vortex phenomenon , ' the team added. ' We believe that… the vortex properties in black holes can be understood without going into the technicalities of quantum gravity calculations.'

The new research was inspired in part by experimental studies of Bose-Einstein condensates , an ultracold state of matter with strange quantum properties that are useful for modeling the behavior of black holes. According to Dvali's team, numerous laboratory experiments have shown the formation of vortices in these condensates , suggesting that structures could also form in extremely fast-spinning black holes.

 Structures could also lead to extraordinary breakthroughs beyond black holes.

The presence of vortices could explain why rapidly spinning black holes don't seem to produce Hawking radiation, a type of black-matter radiation emitted from black holes. The structures could also lead to extraordinary breakthroughs beyond black holes, including the possibility of opening a 'gateway into the realm of dark matter'.

This figurative portal may be hidden in extremely luminous objects called active galactic nuclei , which are powered by supermassive black holes located at the centers of large galaxies. These nuclei shoot out giant jets of plasma that travel nearly at the speed of light and can stretch for a million light years.

Dvali and his colleagues note that these energetic jets can emit magnetic signatures of vortices in light that can be captured and decoded from telescope images. The jets are also thought to interact with dark matter, an unknown substance that makes up most of the mass in the universe. As a result, future observations of jets and the signatures of vortices within them will inform the quest to understand dark matter.

'We are just starting to study the field of black hole spins,' said Florian Kühnel, a cosmologist at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany and co-author of the study. 'There are countless important and interesting questions to be solved that open the door to new and exciting quantum aspects of space-time.'

The research was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.