Black holes are often talked about with disdain, but their massive energy is even more coveted by scientists. If even a part of it can be extracted, it will be a huge boon to mankind. However, it is too difficult, and if it is not done well, it will become a "black hole bomb." Harvesting energy from black holes can be achieved through what is called"Penrose process", the physicist Roger Penrose proposed it as early as 1971. The core is to use"framedragging"The effect draws rotational energy from the black hole.
Reference frame drag means that a rotating celestial body will distort the surrounding space, and objects falling towards it will be dragged, accelerating in the direction of the celestial body's rotation.
Scientists have observed a slight reference frame drag effect near the Earth, and near a powerful rotating black hole, this effect will undoubtedly be very obvious, and may even be so powerful that celestial bodies operating in the black hole's "ergosphere" orbit the black hole at a speed that even exceeds the speed of light in free space.
The trajectory of celestial bodies entering the "Penrose process"
If an object enters the energy layer of a rapidly rotating black hole and releases part of its mass or radiation to the black hole, the black hole will throw the object away at a speed higher than the speed at which it entered the energy layer, allowing it to gain additional energy, and the black hole's rotation speed will slow down.
This is the "Penrose process",In theory, up to 20% of the black hole's mass can be converted into energy.
You know, hydrogen fusion can only convert about 1% of the mass into energy.
Scientists are obviously not satisfied. Since we can achieve 20%, why not more?
A spinning electrically charged black hole
In the latest research,Scientists try to extract the energy of black holes through particle decay, because particle decay produces the "Banados-Silk-West effect."
Using some kind of electromagnetic or physical mirror constraints to allow particles to jump repeatedly near the black hole's event horizon can continue to absorb energy. After decay, we can indirectly harvest the black hole's energy.
Of course, this method is extremely dangerous,Once out of control, the particle energy will gradually amplify, eventually turning the black hole into an extremely powerful "black hole bomb."
Scientists speculate that even a black hole the size of an atomic nucleus can easily kill 1 billion people once it becomes a "bomb."
But it’s not impossible to control, for examplePut a charged black hole in "Anti-deSitter space" (Anti-deSitterspace), and the space itself can act as a constraint, allowing the black hole to release energy on its own.
"DeSitter space" refers to an empty universe with a positive cosmological constant, and anti-de Sitter space is an empty universe with a negative cosmological constant.
Diagram of “Anti-De Sitter Space”