Black holes and pulsars could reveal extra dimensions, solving that thorny problem of testing string theory, which attempts to unify all the known forces. String theory calls for extra spatial dimensions beyond the three we experience. Testing the theory has proved difficult, however.
But that hasn't stopped John Simonetti of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and colleagues who say black holes orbited by neutron stars called pulsars could do just that – if cosmic surveys can locate such pairings. “The universe contains ‘experimental’ setups we cannot produce on Earth,” he says.
Black holes are predicted to cast off their mass over time by emitting particles, a phenomenon called Hawking radiation. Without extra dimensions, this process is predicted to be incredibly slow for run-of-the-mill black holes weighing a few times as much as the sun, making it impossible to measure.
Extra dimensions would give the particles more ways to escape, speeding up the process. This rapid weight loss would loosen a black hole's gravitational grip on any orbiting objects, causing them to spiral outwards by a few metres per year, the team calculates.
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