Aliens may use black holes as quantum computers, physicists say

Why have we still not discovered extraterrestrial civilizations? Perhaps we are not looking for what we need. Two scientists believe that advanced aliens may use black holes as quantum computing machines. The effects of this could be detected with the help of research equipment operating on Earth.

Black holes are areas in the Universe where space-time curves to the maximum. Their gravity is so strong that neither matter nor light escapes from them. They are formed when there is an extreme concentration of matter. For example: when a very massive star collapses gravitationally.

Can the physical properties of black holes be exploited in some way? According to two physicists — yes. Gia Dvali of the Max Plack Institute of Physics and Zaza Osmanov of Tbilisi Free University believe that black holes could be used by advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. Aliens could use them as ultrafast quantum computers.

“Black holes are the most efficient storehouses for storing quantum information. Therefore, it is to be expected that all sufficiently advanced civilizations will use them as quantum computers,” the researchers wrote in their paper. It is currently under review for the International Journal of Astrobiology. It can be found on the science preprint service arXiv.org.

What can be detected with the help of SETI?

The starting point of the two researchers’ reasoning is the Fermi paradox. It’s the question, why haven’t we encountered traces of an alien civilization until now, when the Universe is so big and full of planets? Dvali and Osmanov answer that a possible explanation is our imperfect way of searching. Projects such as SETI only conduct observations in the radio wave range. The largest observatory on Earth — China’s FAST, with a 500-meter diameter canopy — is also a radio telescope.

Meanwhile, other civilizations may be sending us more than just radio messages (or leaving other traces of themselves). If they have the ability to build megastructures — e.g., Dyson spheres for stellar energy storage — their structures may also become visible in infrared. Space civilizations may also be the source of other signals coming from space: gravitational waves or neutrinos, for example.

What can an advanced civilization do?

Dvali and Osmanov’s second premise relates to the aliens themselves. The scientists assume that even if — in an extreme case — they do not operate in a world made, like ours, of ordinary matter, but of unknown exotic particles, they are still subject to the same fundamental laws of quantum physics and gravity. And also that as technology develops, their need for computing power increases.

Where would a civilization far more advanced than ours get it from? From quantum computers, of course. And for quantum computing it would be best to use black holes, which, as the authors write, “are the most efficient and universal tool for processing and storing quantum information.”

Black holes as calculating machines

Attributing interest in black holes to alien civilizations is not a new idea. It has already been pointed out that black holes could be a source of endless energy. Specifically, it could be sourced from the ergosphere, the area of the black hole just before the event horizon. The disk of spinning matter there is accelerated to nearly the speed of light.

However, Dvali and Osmonov believe that aliens at a high level of technological development would rather take advantage of small black holes. The kind that could be produced artificially in laboratory conditions. They would be microscopic and there would have to be a lot of them.

“They would have to be created by collisions of high-energy particles in gas pedals.” — the physicists note.

According to the theory, producing such black holes and then using them for computational purposes would involve the emission of strong Hawking radiation. And this, according to the researchers, would result in the appearance of high-energy particles of ordinary matter, such as neutrinos and photons. The former in particular would be great for technosignatures. According to the physicists, a stream of neutrinos with certain properties described in the paper would even be detectable with the help of Earth-based observatories such as IceCube.

The whole theory, as the author of an article in Universe Today describing Dvali and Osmanov’s work points out, is an interesting example of the application of astrophysicist John Barrow’s logic. According to Barrow, civilizations should be ranked not in terms of how much they expand in space (colonizing other planets, systems or galaxies one by one), but on a micro-scale. That is, relative to how well they perform at the molecular, atomic and quantum levels. In such a view, using artificial blacks as quantum computers an option possibly available only to the most advanced aliens.

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