Quantum Gravity –“Casts Doubt On Fate of Black Holes”

“The fate of black holes in a quantum theory of gravity is, in my view, the most important problem in theoretical physics,” said Jorge Pullin, the Horace Hearne professor of theoretical physics at LSU.

Black holes created by collapsing stars are mysterious objects with an outer edge called an event horizon, which traps everything including light. Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicted that once an object falls inside an event horizon, it ends up at the center of the black hole called a singularity where density apparently becomes infinite and it is completely crushed. At this point of singularity, gravitational attraction is infinite and all known laws of physics break down including Einstein’s theory.

Theoretical physicists have been questioning if singularities really exist through complex mathematical equations over the past several decades with little success until now. LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Associate Professor Parampreet Singh and collaborators LSU Postdoctoral Researcher Javier Olmedo and Abhay Ashtekar, the Eberly Professor of Physics at Penn State developed new mathematical equations that go beyond Einstein’s theory of general relativity overcoming its key limitation–the central singularity of black holes.

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