New research theorizes that a handful of primordial black holes that zipped through the universe shortly after the Big Bang may have been captured by stars, and that these ancient black holes may still be lurking at the centers of those stars today.
Test these hypotheses black hole It could have formed into hot, dense clumps of matter that collapsed within the first seconds of the universe’s birth, which could help determine theories of the early universe and the formation of black holes. However, there are some challenges in finding the small fraction of stars that successfully capture a fast-moving black hole, the study authors said.
“We think that primordial black holes, if they existed, would normally be traveling at enormous speeds across the galaxy,” said the study’s lead author Earl Bellingeran astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany told LiveScience in an email. “If they encounter a star, then they will most likely shoot straight through the star like a bullet. However, a small number of these black holes, the ones that are slow-moving, will have a chance of being captured by the star…if they find We thought we might be able to find them.”
Bellinger and his colleagues, who published a paper discussing this theory in the Astrophysical Journal on December 13, said that if these theoretical mini-black holes were captured by a star, two things would happen. .
“The first possibility is that the black hole is too small to affect the star at all,” Bellinger said. “Extremely low-mass black holes cannot double in mass over the lifetime of the universe, even if embedded in a buffet inside a star.
“The second possibility is that the black hole is massive enough to grow efficiently by eating stars,” Bellinger added.
Are red stragglers actually Hawking stars driven by black holes?
Assume that the primordial black hole has a mass as low as 100,000 times smaller than a paper clipbut larger examples approach mass asteroid Alternatively, dwarf planets could still have visible effects in stars, trapping them as black holes voraciously consume star material over millions of years.
related: The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is approaching the speed limit of the universe, dragging space and time with it
In what Bellinger calls “black hole cannibalism,” the primordial black hole eats the star from the inside out, causing the star’s core to churn and release extra energy.This would cause the star to expand like a red giant, but without the temperature increase that occurs in stars sun They undergo this process when they exhaust the hydrogen fuel in their cores and fuse. These cool red giants are called “red stragglers,” and astronomers have discovered about 500 of them.
The research team has determined that these red stragglers are potential candidates for “Hawkin stars,” or stars with cores powered by small black holes, like legendary physicist stephen hawking First proposed in a paper in 1971.
The existence of the black hole at the center of Hawking’s star could explain why, although scientists have a good grasp of stellar evolution, the evolutionary paths of red stragglers are difficult to chart. By observing the way red stragglers pulsate and vibrate, astronomers may be able to determine whether this feasting process is going on inside these stars.
The researchers added that if primordial black holes did exist, they would likely be present throughout the universe, including in our own cosmic neighbourhood. These objects are fast and extremely small, which may explain why scientists have not discovered them so far.
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“First of all, it’s very difficult to find a black hole, and a typical black hole is many times the mass of the sun. Now we’re talking about a black hole with the mass of an asteroid and the size of the sun. Hydrogen atoms!” Behring Ge said. “We think most primordial black holes are outside stars, wandering around the Milky Way. On average, there’s probably one black hole inside a star. solar system at any given time. “
The team now plans to further study how black holes devour stars from the inside, and use this information to observe the pulsations of Hawking star candidates and determine whether they may have black holes at their cores.
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