According to a recent study, scientists have found a new way to observe magnetic fields on Earth. These are not weak to medium magnitude magnetic fields we see in our daily life. Instead, these are super strong fields with extremely high magnitude. These kinds of fields only exist around heavenly bodies like Black Holes. While scientists can not travel to black holes as of yet. However, we may be able to learn more about them through these experiments on earth.
Live Science reported that this study claims that we will now be able to make magnetic fields of extremely powerful magnitude. These will be comparable to what we expect to exist in neutron stars and black holes. So far the most powerful magnetic field ever created was in a lab experiment in 2018. Scientists used lasers in this experiment to create a magnetic field which was just over one kilotesla in magnitude.
For those not sure how big this number is. A Magnetic Resonance Imaging Machine or an MRI machine at your hospitals produces a magnetic field of about one-tesla magnitude. Interestingly this research makes a bold claim that scientists can soon achieve magnetic fields of about a mega tesla in magnitude.
The research said that “Using computer simulations and modeling, the researchers discovered that shooting “ultra-intense laser pulses” at hollow tubes a few microns in diameter may energize the electrons in the tube’s wall and cause the tube to implode, resulting in a process that could “amplify a pre-existing magnetic field by two to three orders of magnitude”.
However, producing a magnetic field of this magnitude will require an extremely high amount of input energy. Not all of our energy sources can sustain that amount of load for longer periods. Fortunately, these will only last a few nanoseconds which we might be able to do after all.
Producing a Mega Tesla Field:
According to the researchers, the small-time period of about ten nanoseconds is enough for a lot of modern physics experiments. Most of these are already focused on events that happen a million times in this window.
Now coming to the pressing matter, scientists say that his type of experiment can be done with the present level of technology. Since the proposed method only requires a laser beam. The laser beam in this experiment will need pulse energy of 0.1 to 1 kilojoule and total power of 10 to 100 petawatts.
Lasers are one of the most common elements in modern physics experiments. Most modern Physicists already work with various types of lasers in a wide range of experiments. Talking about their power these versatile light elements can be manufactures in a variety of power ranges. they can exist in small toys to high-speed metal cutting machines. Consequently, It is this amount of scalability and high output power that makes them suitable for this experiment.
Coming back to our problem, Live Science says that lasers with power ratings of around ten-petawatt lasers are “already being deployed as part of the European Extreme Light Infrastructure”. In addition, China is also working on developing a petawatt laser called “the station of extreme light”. With that said petawatt is a huge amount of energy. A common Led lightbulb consumes about five watts of energy. A petawatt of energy will run about 200,000,000,000,000 light bulbs.
Lastly, the research authors said that. “The concept holds promise to open new frontiers in many branches of fundamental physics and applications in terms of ultrahigh magnetic fields”. We hope this research becomes a reality in the near future. So we can bring even more exciting tech news to you.