Beschrijving

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. In quantum gravity, a virtual black hole is a black hole that exists temporarily as a result of a quantum fluctuation of spacetime. It is an example of quantum foam and is the gravitational analog of the virtual electron-positron pairs found in quantum electrodynamics. Theoretical arguments suggest that virtual black holes should have mass on the order of the Planck mass, lifetime around the Planck time, and occur with a number density of approximately one per Planck volume. If virtual black holes exist, they provide a mechanism for proton decay. This is because when a black hole’s mass increases via mass falling into the hole, and then decreases when Hawking radiation is emitted from the hole, the elementary particles emitted are, in general, not the same as those that fell in. Therefore, if two of a proton’s constituent quarks fall into a virtual black hole, it is possible for an antiquark and a lepton to emerge, thus violating conservation of baryon number.