Loop Quantum Gravity Predicts Black Holes Evolve into White Holes

(Physics.aps.org) Abhay Ashtekar and Javier Olmedo at Pennsylvania State University in University Park and Parampreet Singh at Louisiana State University have taken have shown that loop quantum gravity—a candidate theory for providing a quantum-mechanical description of gravity—predicts that spacetime continues across the center of the hole into a new region that exists in the future and has the geometry of the interior of a white hole.
We are only beginning to understand the quantum physics of black holes, but in this still speculative field, the Ashtekar-Olmedo-Singh result gives us a welcome fixed point. Classical general relativity predicts that a black hole lives forever and that its center is a “singularity” where space and time end. These predictions are not realistic because they disregard quantum effects. To tackle these effects we need a quantum theory of gravity. The center of a black hole is where our current theory of spacetime, as given by Einstein’s general relativity, fails. Understanding the physics of this region would mean understanding quantum space and quantum time.