Scientists have shown that black holes are the most effective quantum information capacitors. As per an article on the Astrobiology website, this led scientists to also believe that all suitably advanced extraterrestrial civilizations would eventually use black holes in their quantum computers.
In particle species, the associated Hawking radiation is democratic. As a result, the extraterrestrial quantum computers will emit conventional particles like neutrinos and photons inside the detection range of our detectors. This opens up new possibilities for SETI, such as civilizations wholly made of hidden particle species interacting with Earth solely through gravity.
Listening for Radio Transmissions From the Nearby Star Systems
The Fermi Paradox is a question that plagued astronomers and cosmologists since the birth of modern astronomy. It also fueled many proposed resolutions that assert if advanced life had emerged in the Milky Way in the past, then scientists would be seeing signs of their activity.
According to Science Alert, most of the proposed theories aimed to explain the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations challenge the notion that they had to operate on such massive scales. Meanwhile, others suggest that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations would be doing things that would make them less noticeable.
In the recent study, titled "Black Holes as Tools for Quantum Computing by Advanced Extraterrestrial Civilizations" available in arXiv, German-Georgian physicists proposed that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations could use black holes as their quantum computers.
From a quantum computing standpoint, the proposed notion seems to make sense because it offers a reason for the lack of activity in the universe where humans are looking.
The first-ever SETI project in 1960 relied on the 26-meter radio telescope of Green Bank Observatory to listen to radio transmissions from nearby star systems of Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. Since then, most of SETI's projects were geared toward detecting radio technosignatures due to the ability of radio waves to propagate through interstellar space.
Researchers explained to Universe Today via email that they are looking for radio messages and have attempted to study Dyson sphere candidates, which are megastructures built around stars. But SETI's problem is so complex that they should test all possible channels.
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Looking for Evidence of Large-scale Quantum Computing
Many researchers would think that the limited focus is why SETI failed to detect technosignatures. Due to that, scientists recommended extending their search and methods. For the study, theoretical physicist Gia Divali and co-author physics professor Zaza Osmanov suggest looking for evidence of large-scale quantum computing.
They told Universe Today that the benefits of quantum computing are well-documented and given its advancements today, it is logical to assume that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations could adapt this technology at a grander scale.
The idea came from the world of Nobel-prize winner Roger Penrose who proposed the limitless energy that can be harnessed from a black hole by tapping its ergosphere. Several researchers believe that it could be the ultimate power sour of extraterrestrial intelligence.
They proposed two possible scenarios, wherein one involves harnessing the angular momentum of accretion disks, and the second one is capturing the heat and energy generated by their hypervelocity jets.
In the paper, Divali and Osmanov suggest that black holes could be the ultimate source of computation because a civilization's advancement correlates to computational performance and because there exists a universal computation advancement used as potential technosignatures.
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