Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 25, 2026

Gradient Echo Quantum Memory in Warm Atomic Vapor
Published on: November 11, 2013
Probing loop quantum gravity with evaporating black holes
A Barrau1, T Cailleteau, X Cao
1Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie, UJF, INPG, CNRS, IN2P3 53, avenue des Martyrs, 38026 Grenoble cedex, France. aurelien.barrau@cern.ch
Abstract:
This Letter aims at showing that the observation of evaporating black holes should allow the usual Hawking behavior to be distinguished from loop quantum gravity (LQG) expectations. We present a full Monte Carlo simulation of the evaporation in LQG and statistical tests that discriminate between competing models. We conclude that contrarily to what was commonly thought, the discreteness of the area in LQG leads to characteristic features that qualify evaporating black holes as objects that could reveal quantum gravity footprints.
Related Concept Videos
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape velocity with the...
Phase Transitions: Vaporization and Condensation
The Principle of Superposition and the Gravitational Field
Space-Time Curvature and the General Theory of Relativity
This has been verified in many experiments. However, space and time are no longer absolute. Two observers moving relative to one another do not agree on the length of objects or the passage of time. The mechanics of objects based on Newton's laws of motion,...
The Quantum-Mechanical Model of an Atom

