Month: September 2022

ON THE MASSIVE AND THE MINUTE. “Now, physicists at MIT’s LIGO Laboratory have searched for ultralight bosons using black holes — objects that are mind-bending orders of magnitude more massive than the particles themselves. According to the predictions of quantum theory, a black hole of a certain mass should pull in clouds of ultralight bosons, which in turn should collectively slow down a black hole’s spin. If the particles exist, then all black holes of a particular mass should have relatively low spins.” https://lnkd.in/dRWpnua View in LinkedIn

Pristine nature in a volcanic park starting at Llorá outside Girona, Spain. View in LinkedIn

THE MIGHTY AND THE TINY. “But the physicists have found that two previously detected black holes are spinning too fast to have been affected by any ultralight bosons. Because of their large spins, the black holes’ existence rules out the existence of ultralight bosons with masses between 1.3×10(-13) electronvolts and 2.7×10(-13) electronvolts — around a quintillionth the mass of an electron.” https://lnkd.in/dRWpnua View in LinkedIn

BOSONS. “If you jump onto and then down from a carousel, you can steal energy from the carousel. These bosons do the same thing to a black hole.” https://lnkd.in/dRWpnua View in LinkedIn

PARTICLE ZOO. “Ultralight bosons are hypothetical particles with masses smaller than ∼ 10(-11) eV. Their existence, if verified, would help solving open problems in particle physics and cosmology.” https://lnkd.in/gnQbwGA View in LinkedIn

JUST A TAG. “In fact, the name ultralight boson is commonly used to refer to multiple possible candidates, including fuzzy dark matter, dilatons and axions.” https://lnkd.in/gnQbwGA View in LinkedIn

NEEDLES AND HAYSTACKS. “Searches for ultralight bosons using table-top experiments as well as astrophysical observations have been ongoing for years, covering decades of boson mass.” https://lnkd.in/gnQbwGA View in LinkedIn

INDIRECT METHODS. “Gravitational-wave (GW) measurements of black holes in binaries (BBHs) provide a unique opportunity to detect or rule out the existence of these ultralight bosons in a mass range which is commensurate to the black holes masses and not accessible by lab-based experiment.” https://lnkd.in/gnQbwGA View in LinkedIn