Throwing an “Axion Bomb” Into a Black Hole Could Break a Fundamental Law of Physics

Primitive Central Black Dot Supermassive Black Hole

This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

New research shows how the fundamental law of conservation of charge could break down near a black hole.

Singularities, such as those at the center of black holes, where density becomes infinite, are often said to be places where physics ‘breaks down’. However, this doesn’t mean that ‘anything’ could happen, and physicists are interested in which laws could break down, and how.

Now, a research team from Imperial College London, the Cockcroft Institute, and Lancaster University have proposed a way that singularities could violate the law of conservation of charge. Their theory is published in Annalen der Physik.

Co-author Professor Martin McCall, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: “’Physics breaks down at a singularity’ is one of the most famous statements in pop-physics. But by showing how this might actually happen, we take aim at one of the most cherished laws of physics: the conservation of charge.”

Destroying charge

The conservation of charge says that the total electric charge of any isolated system – including the Universe as a whole – never changes. This means that if negatively or positively charged particles move into one area, the same amount of respectively charged particles must move out.

This has been shown at the very smallest scales: when different particles are created or eliminated in experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider, the same amount of negatively and positively charged particles are always produced or destroyed, respectively.

Coupled Axion and Electromagnetic Field

Coupled axion and electromagnetic field. Credit: Imperial College London

Now, by modifying classic physics equations to include axions, a candidate for dark matter, the team has been able to show that temporary singularities – such as black holes that appear and then later evaporate – could destroy charge when they come to the end of their life.

Axions are hypothetical particles that may explain dark matter – the ‘missing’ 85 percent of the matter of the Universe. Their predicted properties could form a field that would interact with the kind of fields physicists have known about for centuries – electromagnetic fields, which are described by a set of equations called Maxwell’s equations.

Using a branch of mathematics called differential geometry, the team found out how to create or destroy charge, violating the charge conservation of the Universe.

Philosophical implications

Co-author Dr. Jonathan Gratus, from the Department of Physics at Lancaster University, said: “You can imagine creating an ‘axion bomb’ that holds charge by combining coupled axion and electromagnetic fields and then dropping it into an evaporating black hole. As the construction shrinks and disappears into the singularity, it takes electrical charge with it.   It is the combination of a temporary singularity and a newly proposed type of axion field that is crucial to its success.”

Co-author Dr. Paul Kinsler, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: “There are also philosophical implications. Although people often like to say that physics ‘breaks down’, here we show that although exotic phenomena might occur, what actually happens is nevertheless constrained by the still-working laws of physics around the singularity.”

The team say the axion phenomenon would only occur under extreme conditions that currently cannot be created in a lab, but that future advances in intense laser fields might allow the theory to be tested in a terrestrial environment.

Reference: “Temporary Singularities and Axions: An Analytic Solution that Challenges Charge Conservation” by Jonathan Gratus, Paul Kinsler and Martin W. McCall, 5 May 2021, Annalen der Physik.
DOI: 10.1002/andp.202000565

42 Comments on "Throwing an “Axion Bomb” Into a Black Hole Could Break a Fundamental Law of Physics"

  1. … oh, my God, you are rally humans, but don’t prove how human you are!
    The math and physics don’t blend good, couldn’t you stop your need for creation and study of another artefact…

  2. Stanislav Glazkov | July 1, 2021 at 12:35 pm | Reply

    Well, the charge still can be preserved while the corresponding field collapses into singularity. As far as I understand it, charge is a quantum property of a dot-like object which interacts with the EM field through exchange of virtual photons existing everywhere while photons are momentum-particles in a way. When charge is an intrinsic property of a particle the sea of photons are just intetacting with because they are all entangled since the big bang there is a possibility of creating “pure” charge by destroying the entanglement through collaps into a black hole. The question is what happens when this “pure” charge (probably mass-less) since most particles get their masses from interactions with fields or virtual particles or other particles happens to get outside of the black hole. If the particle of “pure” charge does not connect back to the fields because this may happen only at big bang (or very high energy event) we might get a rather peculiar thing. A charge without corresponding forces since the particle can not excert them without proper entanglement to the sea of virtual photons. Universe may be full with such “forceless” particles from evaporated primordial black holes and our particle accelerators dont even create electrons/positrons on particle accelerators they just give the energy threshhold needed for a charge-“particle” to get entangled back with its surroundings and assuming this process goes on just like “before” with the whole universe itself (it must have happened once since the universe is expanding which means the procces of entanglement once started will go on further at the speed of light from the point where it began.

  3. Stanislav Glazkov | July 1, 2021 at 12:50 pm | Reply

    My idea is that black holes never ever destroy particles, only the means particles interact with each other. The problem is, as far as our science goes, we still dont know or dont really have the means to deduce which particles are particles and which are congregations of particles and need space because of that. Assuming black holes really “destroy” space leaving particles without any means to interact with each other, assuming particles leaving black holes do not reentangle themselves back spontaniously like nothing happened and require energy and conditions similar to big bang (or at least far from our energy levels/conditions, assuming particles will reentangle themselves given enough energy, assuming universe was indeed full or primordial black holes which evaporeted, assuming too much actually… we could tell what was before the universe by analysing what happens today by giving enough energy to get the particles back to interact with our universe.

    Well, assuming all this I’d say that the universe is strange as …

    and probably there are many more ways for particles to organise themselves as we know of since since sometimes we get sh..t like heavy electrons (myons)… or even heavier electrons… or electrons hiding in a proton (neutron). We dont know sh*t about particles…

  4. Stanislav Glazkov | July 1, 2021 at 1:11 pm | Reply

    The proble is, our understanding of physics and the universe is encased between experimental data (which is never precise) and the need to assume as little as possible to be scientific and our ability to create models or simulations. While experiments leave us with data which is NEVER satisfyinly presice and we can mathemathicly tackle only the simplest cases (point like particles, featureless space) and our simulations take ages even at chromodynamics simulations we cant even make more assumtions (besides the fact it would be unscientific).

    Standart model assumes our physics being somewhat of a bottom of the sea where only simplest interactions and concepts take space but gravity destroys it all giving fermions masses which spread in a way we can not predict. Chances are, we are not at the bottom at all, but somewhere in between without any means to prove it. Worst case: what we observe is simply what we observe and has nothing to do with the universe itself. Somewhat bad case: we observe the observable. Everything besides the observable gets destroyed by the observation.
    Mind-blown case: atoms, molecules and everything below just happen to allign themselves with our every-day objects AND be observable and we are not made of atoms at all. Quarks and gluons may happen to allign themselves with atoms and atoms are not made of quarks and gluons at all. And it may go like this just a smidge less than forever.

  5. Caleigh Fisher | July 1, 2021 at 1:16 pm | Reply

    And throwing a pokemon ball is pretty cool too. Right now they are about equally real

  6. If putting an axiom bomb into a black hole, which consists of black matter, and that black matter makes up most of the universe, then would it be thought, that it could blow up the whole Universe? Especially, being that Physics states that the black hole may turn around and basically destroy the bomb when it was detonated at time of impact? And if it destroys the bomb, does that not still mean that it could explode inside the black hole/black matter/part of the Universe?

    Think about it.

    How else could one justify, what would happen if the bomb exploded inside the black hole. No one knows what is on the other side of the opening. Could it be a time warp? That can swollen one object, on one side of the Universe and spit it out on the other side? And if so, what kind of condition would it leave that said object in, or what would be left of that said object?

    This may sound far fetched, but could it also be a possibility? Does one actually know?

    And if so, then why would someone want to drop an axiom bomb into the black hole, made up of black particles/dark mass/Part of what the Universe is made up of? Or, how the Universe is constructed, together?

    • Obedient Beast Spawn | July 6, 2021 at 4:58 pm | Reply

      I bet your man came up with this idea just like them to want to blow up things they don’t understand who’s to say they’re putting a bomb in a black hole calls the entire universe to suck inside itself .. Think of outer space like an ocean yes it’s black but it’s thick dark matter it’s not nothing it’s a lot of something which creates ripples And riffs It’s like when you go scuba diving and you wear a scuba mask you can see all the particles and things with the fish and as you move through the water you don’t actually touch a lot of it because it pushes it away from you so we don’t know a lot about around the ocean what business is it of ours to go and explore outside of our own bubble.. my opinion is don’t throw a bomb inside of anything ever what if it totally throws earth off the safe spot of perfect heat and cool I really don’t want to burn to death or freeze to death just because some monster wants to see what will happen…

  7. If putting an axiom bomb into a black hole, which consists of black matter, and that black matter makes up most of the universe, then would it not be thought, that it could blow up the whole Universe? Especially, being that Physics states that the black hole may turn around and basically destroy the bomb when it was detonated at time of impact? And if it destroys the bomb, then does that not still mean, that the axiom bomb could explode inside the black hole/black matter/part of the Universe?

    Think about it.

    How else could one justify, what would happen if the bomb exploded inside the black hole. No one knows what is on the other side of the opening. Could it be a time warp? That can swollen one object, on one side of the Universe, and spit it out on the other side? And if so, what kind of condition would it leave that said object in, or what would be left of that said object?

    This may sound far fetched, but could it also be a possibility? Does one actually know?

    And if so, then why would someone want to drop an axiom bomb into the black hole, made up of black particles/dark mass, and part of the Universe? Or, how part of the Universe is constructed, together?

    • SanJuan Elias | July 1, 2021 at 7:33 pm | Reply

      This is as beautifully put as one of those beautiful math models by Hawkings, which turned out to be nothing more than well constructed/educated rubbish…yet yours makes much more sense, if only in its parsimony …

  8. SanJuan Elias | July 1, 2021 at 7:18 pm | Reply

    Only God is really in command of ALL laws and in charge (like He told Pilatus) of those temporarily in charge now. Some might say that what is axiomatic indeed is the existence of self deceived, mere mortals who foolishly think so highly of themselves as to believe they are the ones in charge…A small brain fart like Capablanca had and puff, dark they all inmediately go…Shema!!!

  9. Several things here:
    1. “the total electric charge of any isolated system – including the Universe as a whole – never changes” for all we know, the law may not break down and instead “the Universe a is a whole” may not be an isolated system – why isn’t this discussed?
    2. language could be better – “temporary singularity” used to address an evaporating black hole… when in fact they all evaporate and they are all temporary… cmon

  10. Ferb, i know what we’re gonna do today

  11. Ronald langbauer | July 2, 2021 at 6:42 am | Reply

    The reason why they are here it’s because we are so close to achieving sustainable fusion power which will be used in the wrong way and it will destroy the Earth. You think we’re going to figure out what it took another civilization millions of years to figure out

  12. Unmovableobject | July 2, 2021 at 11:29 am | Reply

    People like to play, and attempted to understand what is not yet ready to be understood, or not yet understandable.

  13. Hahaha, how ridiculous! The entire theory persists because of how common interaction is “where we reside, or where we conduct our experiments.” It’s not this difficult, “singularities” do not exist, it is the limit of repetition, your are breaking down constituent parts to the point that they reconstitute whole parts and that is it. That is what “infinite” means. I can’t believe the scientific community is that stupid… Is this subterfuge? What happens when a puddle of rain evaporates? You cannot and will not experience the infinitum of the universe, but the fact that you experience it at all tells you, you always will.

  14. One of the dumbest ideas !
    I compare the thought to dropping a bomb in a place where we know nothing about,only to find out there was life there and as of a result ,caused great destruction.Such ideas arent constructive, or productive.There are much better approaches than to wrecklessly set off a bomb just to see what happens in such a situation without understanding the reason affects towards an outcome.

  15. Wouldn’t time also slow down to a near infinite but also non-zero at the center of a black hole? Meaning matter never reaches the center until I guess space-time outside has to dissolve somehow, maybe through a combination of universe expansion for further mass and consumption for closer mass. Then it would just rebound. Anyone with me on this?

  16. Jeffrey Allen heerdt | July 2, 2021 at 8:45 pm | Reply

    Getting rid of a black hole by use of a “axiom bomb”…if one was ever created in the far distant future…would probably have negative if not universal apocalyptic reaction….in other words the whole universe could possibly be annihilated. Man is NOT meant to change the universe,the universe changes on it’s own terms.

  17. Patrick R Gomez | July 2, 2021 at 10:56 pm | Reply

    Supernerd bait tricky post , it sounds like destroying a galaxy maybe the universe with a reverse big bang. Proves even morons can be good at math.

  18. Could laws of Physics and Mathematic be just “man made attempt at providing explanations” to satisfy the inquisitiveness of our senses (at least 5, perhaps many more more).
    So is it the laws or just an attempt at pacifying our senses?
    Evolution of self awareness and intelligence + collective resonance may be all what it is, just like quantum mechanics!
    If for a moment we were shift our focus from ourself (which is driven by our senses) or simply turn off all our senses then the whole perspective about universe, it’s creation by Big Bang and so forth would become a question and laws of physics and mathematics may fail or evolve!
    Such a change may either explain things that we do not understand or it may get us closer to a black hole!

  19. Thomas Anthony Errico | July 5, 2021 at 7:26 am | Reply

    What if dog was really spelled C A T!

  20. Jay Rocurionium | July 5, 2021 at 9:16 am | Reply

    Well folks seeing that the closest black hole Sagittarius A is pretty far away I’d say don’t git your panties in a knot…no axiom bombs gonna be bombing any time soon.
    On the home front an extremely ” charged” burrito bomb was put into a clockwise swirling water closet , with one of the exact same specifications being delivered in the southern hemisphere in a counter clockwise swirling water closet.
    Net effect neighbours in both vicintities : saved by zero.

  21. They say everything on earth can be condensed into a table spoon if it was black hole matter. BREAKING NEWS. Particles will be destroyed

  22. Having to return your Doctorate should be a very real possiblity.

  23. There is no force in the universe that can stop a woman from charging

  24. Dark matter is like an imaginary number.

    Anyway, humans are minds connected to brains that force us to “focus” our gaze in three particular dimensions. Our scientific understandings are built with this focus. We can make useful working models with theories that are combined with facts.

    We need to experience the universe by disconnecting our brain almost completely from our mind. And then learn to focus again as we did right after birth.

  25. jason clayton | July 6, 2021 at 6:46 am | Reply

    Drop an axion bomb into a black hole? that statement alone stops this hypothesis dead in its tracks as it would never even make it to the event horizon let alone inside to where the singularity is occurring,if its even a singularity at all and not a plank star to begin with…its very weird to me that math might bear this out hypothetically but it doesnt take into account the actual reality of the impossablitity of said experiment to begin with as you are short cutting what ifs because of the large hadron collided allows you to skip past the entry point of solving the intense gravity that would keep said experiment from ever happening

  26. Anthony Garnett | July 6, 2021 at 9:02 am | Reply

    So quantum fluctuations in spacetime cause pairs of particles to constantly pop in to existence only to instantly annihilate each other, except in the presence of a black hole when one half of the pair topples in causing an apparent emission of radiation from a ‘black’ hole. And we have to assume then that none of these pairs of spontaneously-created particles consist of oppositly charged pairs? Because – sans black hole – such an event and subsequent annihilation would not constitute a violation of the conservation of charge… But in the presence of a black hole?

  27. Who cares!! I mean really!! U can’t get there in our lifetime or even grandchildrens… who cares and why

  28. May I ask why was this even published? Seems kind of like a waste of real research. All these prestigious people who wrote this could have been doing the same thing on something more useful. I understand trying to figure out how to change charge is important. But this while article was mostly science fiction. Why would you even try to blow up something that’s infinite with something that is at this point and time imaginary.

  29. Chelsie Daniel | July 7, 2021 at 12:22 am | Reply

    Madness….A + FOR TRYING TO EXPAND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. MY QUESTION IS…HOW IS THIS FOR GREATER GOOD? IF THERE IS NO ALGORITHM TO SHOW US A CLEAR ANSWER OF WHAT TO EXPECT THEN WHY PLAY? THIS THEORY AND SOME OF THE COMMENTS I READ SOUND SUICIDAL/ HOMICIDAL! I DONT BELIEVE A BLACK WHOLE HAS EVER HURT EARTH. THE ONLY THING THAT IS HURTING OUR UNIVERSE IS MAN ITSELF. MAN HAS STEPPED AWAY FROM KIND. WE LITTER, POLUTE, LIE AND SUGGEST CRAZY THINGS LIKE BOMBING A BLACK HOLE! FIND SOMETHING BETTER TO DO SO WE CAN ALL GO BACK TO STABILITY ON ALL LEVELS PLEASE.

  30. Sub80IQGreenpeaceactivist | July 7, 2021 at 4:54 am | Reply

    I don’t have the intelligence to understand the science behind this, but I can see a way to profit. I’m going to start the first black hole conservation fund.

    SAVE THE BLACK HOLES

  31. Pretty impressive but I still prefer South Melbourne Dim Sims to fill my void.

  32. Pretty impressive but I still prefer South Melbourne Dim Sims to fill my void.

  33. BlackHolePreservationSociety | July 7, 2021 at 7:14 am | Reply

    I don’t think that’s a good idea.

  34. Sir Grandmaster Adler von Chase | July 7, 2021 at 12:40 pm | Reply

    I say we put a “SUPER NOVA” into a super massive black hole! TOP THAT! (Mic drop!)

  35. Ohio2Montana | July 7, 2021 at 2:19 pm | Reply

    This as with most science puts me in awe of the universe and Mans abilities. As a young person, I would ask how, does God not have a beginning, no one could give me a satisfactory answer. It’s simply stated in the Bible that Gods ways and thoughts are higher than Mankind. That is a statement even a child can understand. We can keep trying to learn, however we will never learn all there is to know about Jehovah God and his ways. Let’s have fun trying, no bombs please.

  36. Whoso ever u r I suggest u to please readmission in school and please this time focus more on physics

  37. “This means that if negatively or positively charged particles move into one area, the same amount of respectively charged particles must move out.” Is that statement accurate ? If charged particles “move into an area”, it seems to me that the area is no longer an isolated system.

  38. You people’s curiosity and scientific wonderment is going to yield the end of mankind and many other unseen realms. Stop attacking destiny or it will take a forever turn for the worse. An end to earth as we are a pebble in the grand scheme of the universe. That can be prompted to self destruction. Please stop now so you don’t unleash demonic irreversible aliens that eat humans. Work on something more constructive Please. My kids thank you.

  39. Some things in life are simple and not complicated. While it’s fun to think about the possibilities it’s safe to say we all agree that black holes swallow and eat everything. Axions are hypothetical particles in an attempt to explain dark matter. Throw them in front of a black hole and they will cease to exist and that’s if they even existed in the 1st place. A theory holds less value when there is no way to disprove or confirm it.

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