BLACK HOLE SIZED MAGNETIC FIELDS COULD BE CREATED ON EARTH

The magnetic field is a region around a magnet within which a moving electric charge creates a magnetic force. Even earth has a magnetic field also known as the Geomagnetic field inside its core. A magnetic field is classified based on its strength and mostly the ones that we see in our day-to-day life are artificial. The MRIs used in hospitals typically produce fields of around 1 tesla or 10,000 gausses and in certain cases, it can go up to 10.5 tesla. For comparison, the geomagnetic field that is behind a compass needle registers between 0.3 and 0.5 gauss. The highest record for a magnetic field that was created on a lab here on earth recorded a massive 1200 tesla in 2018.

A recent study shows that scientists should be able to create magnetic fields on earth that are comparable to the strength of those seen in black holes and neutron stars. We aren’t talking about a number which is just 10s or 100 kiloteslas, we are talking about a whopping 1 million tesla field. Now, the immediate follow-up question that raises from one’s mind is that “How on earth is this even remotely possible”. Well, according to a research paper written by Osaka University engineer Masakatsu Murakami and colleagues, this crazy magnetic field would be created by blasting microtubules with lasers.

By using computer simulations and modeling, the research team found that by shooting ultra-intense laser pulses at hollow tubes just a few microns in diameter could energize the electrons in the tube wall and causing some to move forward into the hollow cavity at the center of the tube, imploding it. These interactions of ultra-hot electrons and the vacuum created due to an imploded tube leads to the flow of electric current. The flow of electric charges is what creates a magnetic field. In this case, the current flow can amplify a pre-existing magnetic field by two to three orders of magnitude. The downside to this is that the magnetic field will not last long, fading after 10 nanoseconds. But that’s plenty of time for modern physics experiments where we often work with particles and conditions that are observable only during a blink of an eye.

This scientific vision isn’t far from reality, with the current technology it is calculated that we need a laser system with a pulse energy of 0.1 to 1 kilojoule and a total power of 10 to 100 petawatts. The amount of application and research which can be done in this Ultra-strong magnetic field is beyond our imagination. Super strong magnets can also confine plasma inside nuclear fusion reactors into a smaller area, paving the way for viable fusion energy in the future.