Scientists have found a way to detect vacuum radiation

Astrophysicists have developed a method using which it is quite possible to detect particles of light that arise and disappear in a vacuum. Before that, this was considered impossible in principle.

The problem of fixing ultrafast photons and the proposed solution

The clarified nature of black holes has been criticized and highly questioned since the minute when the general theory of relativity by A. Einstein gave a description of the very possibility of their existence.

So, according to the theoretical reflections of S. Hawking, black holes are quite capable of emitting photons that appear at the very edge of a black hole.

At the same time, in parallel, scientists were studying the properties of the vacuum itself. So back in the 1970s, Hawking gave a theoretical description of how light is able to avoid falling into the gravitational trap of a black hole, and W. Unruh suggested that a photodetector with sufficient speed would be able to detect such light in a vacuum.

Modern research by scientists has combined both theories, while describing in detail both the formation method itself and the option of detecting light, which was previously considered impossible in principle.

So, according to the authors, the data collected in the course of scientific work indicate that light can arise in a vacuum.

So, according to the classical theory, a vacuum is nothing more than a complete absence of matter, light and energy.

But if you look into the section of quantum physics, vacuum is far from empty space. Photons constantly appear and disappear in it. But such a light is almost impossible to fix. But since in theory the option of fixing such photons is possible, it was decided to perform a real experiment.

Thus, in the proposed experiment, the authors assumed that nitrogen-based defects in an accelerating diamond membrane are quite capable of allowing such elusive photons to be detected.

In this experiment, an artificially created diamond of a small size, into which light detectors made on the basis of nitrogen vacancies are fixed in a cooled metal box, where a vacuum is formed.

So, in the course of the experiment, the membrane accelerates to an incredible speed and at this moment begins to "see" pairs of photons that are received from empty space.

Scientists published the material with their theoretical calculations and the discovery made on the Communications Physics portal.

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