Black Holes Studied as a Population
May 7, 2021•
Physics 14, 67
The latest dataset from gravitational-wave observatories has enough events to allow researchers to study properties of the whole population of black holes.
F. Elavsky and A. Geller/Northwestern Univ./LIGO-Virgo Collaboration Black holes (blue), neutron stars (orange), and compact objects of uncertain nature (gray) detected via gravitational waves through September 2019. Each binary merger involves three compact objects: the two coalescing objects and the final remnant. The vertical scale is in solar masses.Black holes (blue), neutron stars (orange), and compact objects of uncertain nature (gray) detected via gravitational waves through September 2019. Each binary merger involves three compact objects: the two coalescing objects and the final remnant. T. Show more
Scientists working at the frontier of particle physics are proposing the existence of a theoretical exotic, ultra-light “boson star” with a mass billions of times smaller than that of the electron and thinking about seeking a ‘darker’ origin of the ripples in spacetime, at the same time proving the existence of a dark-matter particle. Theories about the origin of dark matter in the universe –one of the biggest questions in science–vary from suggesting that it may be older than the Big Bang to the existence of particles the size of galaxies.
Beyond the Standard Model
The question of what particles make up dark matter –“dark” in the sense that it doesn’t emit radiation or hardly physically interact with anything except through its gravitational attraction –is a crucial one for modern particle physics. Observations indicate that dark matter exists, but apparently something other than the particles in the Standard Model constitutes it.
Nicolás Sanchis-Gual and Rocío García-Souto
The hypothetical stars are among the simplest exotic compact objects proposed and constitute well founded dark matter candidates. Within this interpretation, the team is able to estimate the mass of a new particle constituent of these stars, an ultra-light boson with a mass billions of times smaller than that of the electron. Their analysis has been published in the journal
Physical Review Letters on 24 February 2021.
The team is co-led by Dr. Juan Calderón Bustillo, a former professor from the Department of Physics at CUHK and now “La Caixa Junior Leader – Marie Curie Fellow”, at the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics, and Dr. Nicolás Sanchis-Gual, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Aveiro and at the Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon). Other collaborators came from the University of Valencia, the University of Aveiro and Monash University. Samson Hin Wai Leong, a second-year undergra
By CFT (not verified) on 14 Sep 2017 #permalink
@Ethan wrote:
when a theoretical model makes failed predictions, that doesn’t necessarily mean the theory is a failure
By your thinking, can anything ever be proven wrong?
As a whole, I think historical observation is far more useful than scientific theory at predicting the future. When cavemen didn t know what the sun was or that the Earth wasn t flat, they still knew the sun would come up in the morning. Video game players don t have to do any sort of scientific analysis to get better at playing a game. With regards to phenomena I think experience is vastly more important then explanation. When scientists are testing new theories they invariably compare them to historical observation to evaluate the robustness of their new theory. In virtually all science, theories are constructed to fit observations. It is only really the Screechy Social Sciences and Global Warming True Believers that see scientists operate backwards
2020: A Year in Space
Despite the global pandemic that has brought much of the world to a grinding halt, space scientists have continued to push the boundaries of our knowledge throughout 2020.
It’s difficult to mention the year 2020 without referencing COVID-19, but as more human beings than ever before were wishing they could take a break from the surface of the planet, space research continued to push our knowledge of the stars. Whilst much of the scientific community was consumed with combating a pandemic, physicists, astronomers, cosmologists, and other researchers were further pushing our understanding of space and the objects which dwell there.