Scientists recreate black hole energy effect in lab
Scientists have recreated a phenomenon inspired by energy extraction from a spinning black hole in a laboratory experiment that could advance communications, optics and quantum technologies, reports a Qazinform News Agency correspondent.
Researchers from the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center described the breakthrough in the journal Nature. Rather than physically rotating an object, the team developed a stationary radio-frequency device that creates the illusion of ultrafast rotation by rapidly changing its properties across space and time.
The experiment is based on ideas proposed by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir Roger Penrose, who suggested in 1969 that energy could be extracted from a rotating black hole under specific conditions. Soviet physicist Yakov Zel'dovich later predicted that waves interacting with a sufficiently fast-spinning object could also gain energy and become amplified.
"Our approach facilitates a new method of wave-matter interaction in which waves with selected rotational properties extract energy from synthetic time-engineered rotation, producing a form of broadband selective amplification," said lead researcher Andrea Alù.
Lead author Hadiseh Nasari said the study moves a long-standing theoretical concept into the laboratory.
"This successful experiment moves ideas about extreme rotational dynamics from theory to practice and creates a versatile experimental platform for exploring a broad range of phenomena at the intersection of astrophysics, wave physics, and quantum science," she said.
Co-lead author Hady Moussa added that waves interacting with the stationary system "extracted energy from the system and became amplified, reproducing the essential physics of the Penrose-Zel'dovich process."
The researchers believe the technique could eventually improve wireless communications, photonics and quantum information technologies while providing a new way to study extreme astrophysical phenomena.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that scientists developed an experimental cancer treatment that destroyed 99% of cancer cells in laboratory tests without initially relying on chemotherapy, surgery or radiation, marking a promising step toward a new approach to fighting the disease.
