A new theoretical model suggests black holes leave behind stable remnants that preserve quantum information, potentially solving a long-standing puzzle in physics.
Physicists have long grappled with the black hole information paradox, which arose from Stephen Hawking's 1970s work showing that black holes emit radiation and eventually evaporate. A study led by Richard Pinčák and published in General Relativity and Gravitation proposes that spacetime torsion in a seven-dimensional Einstein-Cartan framework prevents complete evaporation.
The model predicts remnants with a mass of about 9*10^-41 kg that store information through quasi-normal modes. For a solar-mass black hole, these remnants could hold roughly 1.515*10^77 qubits, matching the information content needed to resolve the paradox.
The same geometry links to the electroweak scale of about 246 GeV, offering a possible explanation for particle masses via the Higgs field. The remnants might also contribute to dark matter, with tests possible through astronomical observations rather than current particle accelerators.