Johns Hopkins University | 2023 Apr 20
Though the mysterious object is a hypothetical mathematical construction, new simulations by Johns Hopkins researchers suggest there could be other celestial bodies in space hiding from even the best telescopes on Earth
It looks like a black hole and bends light like a black hole, but it could actually be a new type of star.Movie clip showing the gravitational lensing effects caused by no object
in an observer’s line of sight, a black hole, and the topological soliton
Credit: Pierre Heidmann /Johns Hopkins University
Though the mysterious object is a hypothetical mathematical construction, new simulations by Johns Hopkins researchers suggest there could be other celestial bodies in space hiding from even the best telescopes on Earth. ...
The new simulations realistically depict an object the Johns Hopkins team calls a topological soliton. The simulations show an object looking like a blurry photo of a black hole from afar but like something else entirely up close.
The object is hypothetical at this stage. But the fact that the team could construct it using mathematical equations and show what it looks like with simulations suggests there could be other types of celestial bodies in space hiding from even the best telescopes on Earth.
The findings show how the topological soliton distorts space exactly as a black hole does—but behaves unlike a black hole as it scrambles and releases weak light rays that would not escape the strong gravitational force of a true hole. ...
Motivated by various results from string theory, Bah and Heidmann discovered ways to construct topological solitons using Einstein's theory of general relativity in 2021. While the solitons are not predictions of new objects, they serve as the best models of what new quantum gravity objects could look like compared to black holes.
Scientists have previously created models of boson stars, gravastars, and other hypothetical objects that could exert similar gravitational effects with exotic forms of matter. But the new research accounts for pillar theories of the inner workings of the universe that other models don't. It uses string theory that reconciles quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity, the researchers said. ...
Is This a Black Hole or a New Type of Star?
Universe Today | 2023 Apr 26
Imaging Topological Solitons: the Microstructure Behind the Shadow ~ Pierre Heidmann, Ibrahima Bah, Emanuele Berti
- Physical Review D 107(8):084042 (15 Apr 2023) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.107.084042
- arXiv > astro-ph > arXiv:2212.06837 > 13 Dec 2022 (v1), 17 Dec 2022 (v2)