Gravity can reconnect like the sun's magnetic field, a fresh look at Einstein's equations reveals
According to a new theoretical study, sheet-like structures in the gravitational field can break apart and reconnect in new arrangements, much like the magnetic field lines that unleash solar flares.
Key points
- And, like magnetic field lines frozen into a plasma, "under certain conditions, these sheets evolve without breaking or changing how they are connected," Comisso said.
- From solar flares to space-time Magnetic field lines are normally "frozen" into plasma — the hot, electrically charged gas that makes up stars — and carried along wherever it flows.
- Magnetic reconnection — the process behind the sun's most violent outbursts — may have a counterpart in gravity.
"But when we express Einstein's equations in a particular mathematical form, some of the same principles that govern magnetic fields also emerge in gravity.
Additional details
- Where this rule breaks down, they can snap and rejoin in a process called magnetic reconnection, releasing pent-up energy in explosive bursts such as solar flares.
- Reconnection also alters gravitational helicity, the gravitational counterpart of a quantity that measures how twisted and interlinked magnetic field lines are.
- "We also derived equations describing how quickly this reconnection can occur and how it can affect the transfer of energy and momentum," Comisso said.
- "In plasma physics, reconnection has become an essential part of our understanding of how magnetic fields reorganize and exchange energy with matter," Luca Comisso, an astrophysicist at Columbia University and first author of the study, told Live Science via email.
- "Could something similar be true for gravity?" "Gravity and magnetism describe very different aspects of nature, so there's no obvious reason to expect them to behave alike," Comisso said.
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