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Gravitational Waves could shed light on the Origin of Black Holes

Black hole artist's concept. Credit: © nasa_gallery / Fotolia

Black hole artist’s concept. Credit: © nasa_gallery / Fotolia

A new study outlines how gravitational wave experiments could be used to test the existence of primordial black holes, gravity wells formed just moments after the Big Bang that some scientists have posited could be an explanation for dark matter. “We know very well that black holes can be formed by the collapse of large stars, or as we have seen recently, the merger of two neutron stars,” said Savvas Koushiappas, an associate professor of physics at Brown University and coauthor of the study with Avi Loeb from Harvard University. “But it’s been hypothesized that there could be black holes that formed in the very early universe before stars existed at all. That’s what we’re addressing with this work.”

The idea is that shortly af...

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