The idea that a parallel universe or many universes (multiverses) exist, has been around for a while. There is string theory and the “many-worlds” theory and variations upon these. But nobody has ever been able to carry out an experiment capable of successfully testing this.
However, a new proposal which postulates that tiny black holes connect us to other universes, has been put forward by Mir Faizal, and Mohammed M. Khalil of the University of Waterloo in Canada. Their study has been published in Physics Letters B and scientists at the LHC will now be testing their theory in practice.
The LCH has already been used to look for tiny black holes, but has so far failed. Now, Faizal and Khalil have proposed alterations to previous experiments, which they hope will confirm their new theory.
If they succeed, it would overturn our entire concept of reality. Such a discovery would mean that many more dimensions exist than those which we can currently conceive of or experience.
It would also challenge the conventionally accepted theory that the universe began with a Big Bang. Instead, it says there was never a singularity and the universe has no beginning – it is timeless and infinite.
Moreover, these parallel universes might not be governed by the same laws of physics that we know of. Or they could follow our laws, but in a way we are not used to. For example, some scientists suggest that there could be an alternative universe in which time goes backwards.
The two scientists also think that such universes wouldn’t be like the “many-worlds” theory, in which, following every decision and action you make, the alternative possibility would split away and exist in another universe – meaning that there exists an infinite number of alternative universes in which you still exist, as if you had taken a different course of action.
Talking to Phys.org. Faizal said,
“Normally, when people think of the multiverse, they think of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, where every possibility is actualized. This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science. This is not what we mean by parallel universes. What we mean is real universes in extra dimensions.”
“Just as many parallel sheets of paper, which are two dimensional objects (breath and length) can exist in a third dimension (height), parallel universes can also exist in higher dimensions,” Faizal told the Mail Online.
Such multiuniverses wouldn’t just exist alongside us, we would be connected to them by the miniscule black holes and there would be a physical exchange between us and them. Faizal and Khalil say that gravity from our own universe would flow through these black hole-tunnels into the universes beyond.
The black holes are predicted to exist in the “gravity rainbow.” Unlike Einstein’s theory that light is bent by gravity universally, “Rainbow Gravity” theory suggests that gravity affects different wave lengths of light and this means that particles will have different levels of energy.
Faizal and Khalil are suggesting that,
“the current model of gravity that was used to predict the required energy level for black hole production is not quite accurate because it does not account for quantum effects.”
“According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, gravity can be thought of as the curvature of space and time. However, here the scientists point out that this geometry of space and time responsible for gravity gets deformed at the Planck scale,” says Phys org.
Using the Rainbow model, the researchers estimated that more energy will be needed to detect tiny black holes than previously thought. The LHC has looked for black holes at lower energy levels and the scientists say this is the reason it hasn’t succeeded.
But now re-activated, the new superpower LHC will be capable of smashing particles together at double the force it was doing before, thus making the new experiment feasible.
Previously, the LHC looked for black holes at energy levels of 5.3 TeV.
Phys.org says,
“Black holes may form at energy levels of at least 9.5 TeV in six dimensions and 11.9 TeV in 10 dimensions. Since the LHC is designed to reach 14 TeV in future runs, these predicted energy requirements for black hole production should be accessible.”
Scientists at Cern believe that by analyzing the shapes which the billions of particles take after shooting outwards from the force of the collisions, they could get evidence of different dimensions and possibly detect gravity entering the mini black holes.
“We have calculated the energy at which we expect to detect these mini black holes in gravity’s rainbow… If we do detect mini black holes at this energy, then we will know that both gravity’s rainbow and extra dimensions are correct,” said co-researcher, Ahmed Farag Ali from Florida State University.
However, Mohammed Khalil told Phys.Org:
“If black holes are not detected at the predicted energy levels, this would mean one of three possibilities,’
“One, extra dimensions do not exist. Two, they exist, but they are smaller than expected. Or three, the parameters of gravity’s rainbow need to be modified.”
Two other scientists in the field expressed encouragement, but also caution.
Remo Garattini, Professor of Physics at the University of Bergamo, said,
“I think that the paper is interesting, but we have to be careful to extrapolate global results using only one proposal for the rainbow’s functions.”
Also Joao Magueijo, Professor of Physics at Imperial College London said that in his opinion,
“The work is interesting, but like many other applications of rainbow gravity, it does depend crucially on the chosen free functions of the theory. Still, I think this work could be a valuable step in constraining those free functions.”
