Wormholes in the laboratory
Two black holes connected by a wormhole could solve one of cosmology's greatest mysteries. Now physicists have proposed a way to implement such a scenario in the laboratory - without any black holes at all, but with ultracold atoms.
Some physical theories sound more like science fiction than reality. An example of this is a scenario where two black holes are connected by the laws of quantum mechanics. This means that whatever happens to one of the two collapsed stars will instantly affect the other - no matter how far apart they are. If such a connection actually exists, it could solve one of the greatest mysteries in cosmology.
If information enters a black hole, for example when a quantum particle falls into it, it is extremely quickly distorted beyond recognition. This fact has been giving scientists stomach ache for decades. Because the laws of quantum mechanics actually state that information, just like energy, cannot be destroyed.
Some researchers have suggested a way out: information about a quantum particle could eventually escape from another black hole connected to the first one. In this case, it appears as if the particle has traveled through space-time via a shortcut. The quantum mechanical connection between the collapsed stars then corresponds to a wormhole.
Of course, such an event is pure speculation so far. Today's technology is far from being able to prove such phenomena. But physicists around Sepehr Nezami from Stanford University have now developed a proposal to actually observe the described processes experimentally…
