RADIO telescopes designed to spot distant black holes and supernovae may also pick up evidence of extra spatial dimensions.
If these extra dimensions exist, as string theory predicts they should, a mini black hole might wrap around them like a rubber band to form a “black string”. This would shrink and eventually snap, says Michael Kavic at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. As it did so it would produce a pulse of light with a unique signature, which could be spotted by radio telescopes such as Virginia Tech’s 8-metre-wavelength Transient Array (www.arxiv.org/abs/0801.4023).
It’s an idea that intrigues Charles Keeton at Rutgers University, New Jersey. “The people…
