A Quantum Physics Approach to a Singularity Problem

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One of the most important points basically relativity that separates it from different descriptions of the universe, like quantum physics, is the existence of singularities. Singularities are factors that when mathematically described give an infinite worth and recommend areas of the universe the place the legal guidelines of physics would stop to exist — i.e. factors initially of the universe and on the middle of black holes.

A brand new paper in Nuclear Physics B, revealed by Roberto Casadio, Alexander Kamenshchik, and Iberê Kuntz from the Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Italy, means that extending the remedy of singularities in classical physics into quantum physics might assist to unravel this disparity between branches of physics.

“No description of nature is perfect and complete. Every theory has its domain of applicability, beyond which it breaks down and its predictions no longer make sense,” Casadio says. As an instance, he cites Newton’s theories, that are nonetheless strong sufficient to ship rockets to area, however fall down when describing the very small, or the tremendously large.

First Image of a Black Hole

A brand new quantum method to the issue of singularities might reply the query of what occurs on the middle of a black gap like this one discovered within the galaxy M87. Credit: EHT

“This is a serious issue because general relativity — the theory that best describes the gravitational interaction at present — predicts the existence of singularities quite generically,” Casadio says. “It is like having a hole in space, where nothing can exist, but into which observers and everything else will fall nonetheless.”

Casadio means that this may be envisaged as a chunk of paper with a small gap in it. “You can move the tip of your pen on the paper, which represents the movement of a particle, but if you reach the hole your pen suddenly stops drawing and the particles suddenly disappear,” he says. “This illustrates how singularities are theoretical obstacles preventing us from fully understanding nature.”

Casadio provides that the truth that physics ceases to exist at singularities results in unanswered questions resembling: What actually occurred initially of the universe? Was the whole lot born out of some extent that by no means actually existed? What occurs to a particle when it falls into the middle of a black hole?

“These open questions are the very reason we are compelled by our curiosity to pursue this line of investigation,” he says. “Our approach heavily relies on the methods of Quantum field theory (QFT): the framework that combines quantum mechanics and special relativity and gives rise to the very successful standard model of particle physics.”

The authors used the tools of QFT to construct a mathematical object that can signal the presence of singularities in experimentally measurable quantities. This object, which they have named the “functional winding number” is non-zero in the presence of singularities and vanishes in their absence.

This approach has revealed that certain singularities predicted theoretically do not affect quantities that can in principle be measured experimentally, and therefore remain harmless mathematical constructs.

“If our formalism survived scientific scrutiny and turned out to be the correct approach, it would suggest the existence of a very deep physical principle, so the choices of physical variables are rather unimportant,” Casadio concludes. “This could be consequential for our understanding of physics, even beyond the subject of singularities.”

Reference: “Covariant singularities in quantum field theory and quantum gravity” by Roberto Casadio, Alexander Kamenshchik and Iberê Kuntz, 26 July 2021, Nuclear Physics B.
DOI: 10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2021.115496