Scientists have discovered that supermassive black holes could act as natural particle colliders to hunt for dark matter. According to new research, the conditions around these massive black holes are more violent than previously thought, which could generate high-energy particles similar to those created in human-made particle accelerators.
The most powerful particle accelerator on Earth is currently the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but it has failed to deliver evidence of physics beyond the “standard model of particle physics,” including dark matter. To address this, scientists are proposing even larger and more powerful particle colliders, but these are prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to build.
Enter supermassive black holes, which could potentially generate high-energy particles through their extreme environments. Researchers have found that gas flows near these massive objects can sap energy from their spin, resulting in violent conditions that could produce a wealth of high-speed collisions between particles.
These collisions could generate particles with energies comparable to those produced by human-made particle accelerators, making them potential candidates for dark matter detection. While detecting these particles from supermassive black holes will be challenging, observatories tracking supernovas, black hole eruptions, and other high-energy cosmic events may hold the key to this detection.
The research team believes that exploiting the natural particle colliding capabilities of supermassive black holes could provide a glimpse into the future of physics beyond our current understanding. With its potential to generate unprecedentedly high energies, this approach could offer a novel route for studying dark matter, which accounts for an estimated 85% of the universe’s matter.
By leveraging the extreme environments of supermassive black holes, scientists may finally uncover evidence of dark matter, unlocking new insights into the mysteries of the cosmos.
Source: https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes-could-work-as-natural-particle-colliders-to-hunt-for-dark-matter-scientists-say