Gravitational Waves Bring Reality Instead Of Dreams Of Extra Dimensions
The detection of gravitational waves from a collision of neutron stars allowed us to compare gravitational signals with different kinds of electromagnetic waves. And it doesn’t look good for extra dimensions.
ESA [CC BY-SA 3.0-igo (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0-igo)], via Wikimedia Commons
Gravitational astronomers have already successfully detected several gravitational waves. Thanks to them we can listen to echoes of collisions of such gigantic things as neutron stars or even black holes. But they didn’t make everyone happy. For example, scientists who are fans of extra dimensions are probably sad.
Astrophysicists from the University of Chicago recently studied the data collected from the gravitational waves and didn’t find any evidence of extra dimensions. Also, don’t be mistaken, we are not talking about other universes. We are talking about hidden dimensions of spacetime that would be part of our own reality.
Last year we detected gravitational waves from a collision of two neutron stars. That itself was a massive feat but this one was even more special. Because we also observed the collision with conventional telescopes. That means we have two separate kinds of data – the gravitational signal and the electromagnetic signal for comparison.
The current cosmological models are ruled by General Relativity but there is still much that we don’t understand. We have a universe filled with Dark Matter and Dark Energy. All this darkness is something that is coming out of the math we have yet we still don’t know what exactly it is. This is why physicists are trying to supplement or even replace General Relativity with other theories. And many of these theories include extra dimensions that enhance our well know 3+1 dimensional world with more dimensions. For example, in some of these theories gravity escapes into these dimensions and that is the reason why it is so weak compared to the rest of the forces.
The gravitational observatory LIGO detected the collision on the 17th August of 2017. And it was also detected by other observatories around the world so we have data in the gamma, x-ray, radio, visible light and infra-red spectrum as well. And if gravity would have to travel through the extra dimensions the signal should be weaker compared to what we might expect.
But, it shows, the gravitational signal was exactly as strong as we expect. The results thus suggest our spacetime is really made from only three spatial dimensions and time. Some may view this as a disappointment and others will view as a confirmation of their views. But really, it is only the beginning of what gravitational astronomy has to offer.
Sources:
- http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1475-7516/2018/07/048/pdf
- https://news.uchicago.edu/story/gravitational-waves-provide-dose-reality-about-extra-dimensions
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