Building on previous research on so-called invisibility cloaks, a team of researchers have made the magnetic equivalent of a wormhole, as they have developed a device capable of transporting a magnetic field from one point in space to another, various media outlets are reporting.
According to LiveScience and Physics World reports, study co-author Jordi Prat-Camps, a Ph. D. candidate in physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain, and his colleagues developed technology that can transmit the magnetic field from one point in space to another through a path that is magnetically invisible using techniques comparable to wormholes.
While this method isn’t actually a wormhole as described in the theories of Albert Einstein, who found that the theory of relativity supported the potential existence of bridges that could be used to two different points in space-time, it serves the same function for a magnetic field and may be useful in magnetic resonance imaging technology, the researchers explained.
The magnetic wormhole, which is detailed in a Scientific Reports paper published on Thursday, is described by LiveScience as “a realization of a futuristic ‘invisibility cloak’ first proposed in 2007.” That device could hide electromagnetic waves from external view, but used methods that required impractical and difficult-to-use materials, Prat-Camps told the website.
Device could make MRI machines less claustrophobic
In contrast, the materials needed to make a magnetic wormhole are easier to use. They include superconductors capable of carrying high levels of current and which expel magnetic field lines from the interior. These lines are essentially bent or distorted, enabling it to behave differently from its surroundings – the first step towards conceiving magnetic field disturbances.
The device they created is nine centimeters in diameter and cloaks a magnetic field from a dipole source planed on one side, which makes it appear as if the field lines come from a monopole on the opposite side of the spherical instrument. As such, this makes it appear as though those lines take what Physics World refers to as “an invisible shortcut” through intervening space.
It is comprised of three layers, one of which transmits the field from one end to the other and the other two that obscure the existence of that magnetic field. The inner portion was made out of a ferromagnetic mu-metal that was highly magnetic and highly permeable. This was coated by two shells, one made from a high-temperature superconducting material called yttrium barium copper oxide that bended the field, and another that canceled out that bending.
The device makes magnetic field lines effectively invisible while in transit, and while the study authors are not sure that this could teach us anything about cosmological wormholes, they noted that it could be used to take pictures of a person’s body without needing to place them inside an MRI machine. Instead, the magnet used in this process could be placed far from the patient. For this to work, however, the shape of the device would need to be changed, the authors said.
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Feature Image: This is essentially how the wormhole would work. (Credit: Jordi Prat-Camps and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
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