From the first stars to the icy borders of the cosmic emptiness, the fate of the universe seems to be drawn towards slow extinction. However, a recent study by Dutch researchers calls into question the supposed duration of this agony. By re -examining the subtle effects of Hawking cancellation on dense stellar objects, these scientists revealed that the decline of the universe could start much earlier than we had imagined, redistributing the cards of the current understanding of cosmic longevity.
This study is based on previous work carried out by the same team in 2023, which had already demonstrated that the famous radiation of Hawking did not only concern black holes. It could also apply to other very dense objects such as neutron stars. This discovery is essential, because it means that even the most stable stars would be condemned to disappear. The researchers refined their calculations to answer the many questions that their first study had raised, especially on the real speed of this evaporation process.
Hawking cancellation, initially formulated by the physicist Stephen Hawking in 1975, is based on a fascinating quantum phenomenon. At the edge of a black hole, two so -called “virtual” particles may appear briefly. Normally, they are immediately canceled. But if one is captured by the black hole, his twin can escape it, taking with it a little of the mass of the black hole. This process leads to billions of years the complete disappearance of the black hole. Radboud University researchers have shown, and Phys.org relayed their conclusions, that the same type of phenomenon could occur around other celestial objects, thus radically modifying the classic models of cosmic longevity.
The unknown role of the space-time curvature in this process
Beyond the black holes, the researchers discovered that the simple curvature of space-time around a massive object is enough to trigger this evaporation mechanism. To simplify, you have to imagine that gravity deforms the fabric of space-time, a bit like a heavy ball placed on a tense sheet. The higher the object, the stronger the deformation. This extreme distortion creates conditions conducive to the separation of pairs of particles, which become real instead of canceling itself, which ends up reducing the mass of the object very slowly.
The researchers obtained this major advance thanks to a complex theoretical approach combining general relativity and quantum physics. The Debrief explains this approach in detail. Michael Wondrak specifies that this phenomenon resembles the Schwinger effect, well known in the field of intense electric fields, where an extremely powerful field tears out of the particles from the void.
Surprisingly, the calculations show that the evaporation time depends exclusively on the density of the object. For example, neutron stars, these incredibly dense stars formed after the explosion of a supernova, would take about 10⁶⁸ years to disappear. This figure is identical to that estimated for small stellar black holes. This result surprised the scientific community because it was so far supposed that the more intense gravity of black holes would make them disappear faster.
Walter Van Suijlekom, professor of mathematics at Radboud University, stresses that this study represents an unprecedented collaboration between astrophysicists, mathematicians and quantum physicists, allowing to explore phenomena to dizzying time scales, far beyond any current experimental capacity.
A cosmic future marked by the slow evaporation of matter
On an astronomical scale, these new predictions provide an unprecedented answer to an essential question: can matter be eternal? The answer seems to be no. Once the black holes and stars with neutron has disappeared, the less dense objects, like the white dwarfs, would still resist around 10⁷⁸ years according to the calculations published by the researchers and relayed by Science Blog. This figure, although colossal, is infinitely lower than previous forecasts.
To illustrate how this hypothesis extends to any form of matter, the researchers even had fun estimating the theoretical time of evaporation of the moon or a human body subject to this process. The result is around 10⁹⁰ years. Obviously, other natural phenomena would make these objects disappear long before.
One of the fascinating aspects of this study is that it imposes a limit greater than the longevity of all matter. The researchers believe that if objects from the previous universes had existed, they should have dissolved for a long time, unless the duration between two universes cycles was less than about 10⁶⁸ years. This theory opens the door to daring speculations on the existence of vestiges of ancient universes and on the infinite cycle of the cosmos.
Although these scenarios remain strictly theoretical, they upset the image of infinite stability that we could have. They also ask new scientific and philosophical questions about the ultimate nature of matter and on the distant fate of an empty universe of any structure. The team of researchers led by Heino Falcke, Michael Wondrak and Walter Van Suijlekom hopes that these results will serve as a starting point for future research allowing, perhaps one day, to permanently unravel the mystery of Hawking's radiation.
