One of the most famous problems in modern physics has a name that sounds like a thriller: the information paradox black holes. For decades, physicists have debated what happens to the information of everything that falls into one of these objects. A new study led by the team of Richard Pinčák of the Slovak Academy of Sciences offers an answer that, if confirmed, would also explain why elementary particles have mass.
The problem that Stephen Hawking couldn’t solve
In the 1970s, the physicist Stephen Hawking showed that black holes are not completely black. He calculated that they emit a very weak radiation – today known as Hawking radiation – that makes them shrink little by little until they disappear. The problem is that this process seems to destroy information, something that quantum mechanics categorically prohibits. Quantum laws state that information cannot be destroyed; Black hole evaporation suggests otherwise.
This contradiction, known as the information paradoxfound no solution for more than fifty years. Generations of physicists proposed theories, but none were entirely convincing. The new study published in General Relativity and Gravitation takes a different path: it does not modify quantum mechanics or general relativity separately, but instead proposes a richer geometry for the space-time.
Seven dimensions and a geometry that «twists» space
The research explored the consequences of a gravity theory call Einstein-Cartanformulated in seven dimensions on a mathematical structure known as a G2-manifold with torsion. Unlike standard general relativity, this theory allows spacetime to not only curve, but also to «twist.» That torque is the key to the model.
«The twisting of space-time generates a repulsive force at extreme densities, typical of the Planck scale,» the team explained in a institution statement. This force acts as a brake: it opposes gravitational collapse and stops the Hawking evaporation in its final stage. The result is that the black hole does not disappear. Instead, it leaves behind a stable residue with a calculated mass of approximately 9×10⁻⁴¹ kilograms.
A cosmic hard drive
If the black hole does not completely evaporate, the immediate question is: what happens to all the information from the matter that fell into it? The researchers proposed that this stable residue acts as a memory file. Information is not destroyed; It is encoded in the vibrations of the torsion field within the geometry of the residue, in what physics calls quasi-normal modes.
The team’s calculations showed that a remnant originating from a black hole with the mass of the Sun would have the capacity to store approximately 1,515×10⁷⁷ qubits of information. «This is exactly the amount needed to resolve the paradox,» the team noted. Information is not lost: it is preserved in the long-lived vibrations of the geometric field.
The unexpected link with the Higgs boson
What makes this study especially notable is its connection to particle physics. By reducing the seven-dimensional model to four—the ones we perceive—the geometry naturally produces the electroweak scale, equivalent to about 246 GeV. This scale is the same one that characterizes the Higgs fieldthe mechanism that gives mass to elementary particles.
«The vacuum expectation value of the torsion field is dynamically identified with the electroweak scale,» the team said. In simple terms: the same geometric property that prevents the disappearance of the black hole and preserves quantum information also offers a purely geometric explanation for one of the central puzzles of particle physics, the so-called problem of the mass hierarchy.
Why can’t it be tested in an accelerator?
An obvious question is why particle accelerators have not yet detected these extra dimensions. The answer lies in the energies involved. The researchers calculated that the particles associated with these dimensions—the so-called Kaluza-Klein excitations—have masses of around 8.6×10¹⁵ GeV. That figure exceeds the capacity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva.
«Invisible to colliders does not mean impossible to test»the team warned. The theory makes concrete and verifiable predictions, only in settings other than terrestrial laboratories.
Three ways to test the theory
Investigators identified three possible paths to finding evidence. The first involves the dark matter: The stable residues predicted by the model, with masses on the Planck scale, could be part of that invisible matter that makes up most of the universe. Detecting its gravitational signature would be a direct test of the model.
The second path passes through the quasi-normal modes. The specific vibrations of the torsion field in these residues offer a mathematical pattern that distinguishes this theory from any other. The third points to early universe: The energy scales of the model are typical of the first moments after the Big Bang, so traces of this seven-dimensional geometry could be hidden in the cosmic microwave background or in primordial gravitational waves.
A new way of seeing the fabric of the universe
The study does not propose to rewrite the quantum mechanics nor abandon general relativity. His bet is different: he suggests that the information paradox has a solution if we accept that space-time has a deeper structure, with hidden dimensions that, for now, are out of the reach of any direct experiment.
The idea that a single geometry can account for both the survival of information in black holes and the origin of the mass of particles is not minor. If the model’s predictions are confirmed—whether in the microwave background, dark matter, or future gravitational signals—theoretical physics would have to assume that the universe has seven dimensionsand that the three extra dimensions have been in front of us for decades, folded in the very geometry of space-time.
