More than 50 years ago, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir Roger Penrose proposed an extraordinary idea.
He suggested that it might be possible to extract energy from a spinning black hole, one of the most powerful objects in the universe.
His theory described how a particle entering a region around a rotating black hole, called the ergosphere, could split into two.
One part would fall into the black hole, while the other would escape carrying even more energy than the original particle.
A few years later, physicist Yakov Zel’dovich expanded on this idea.
He predicted that waves, such as electromagnetic waves, could also gain energy if they interacted with a rapidly spinning object. Instead of losing energy, the waves would become stronger, a process known as wave amplification.
For decades, these ideas remained mostly theoretical because creating objects that spin fast enough for experiments is nearly impossible.
Now, researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center have found a creative way to overcome this challenge.
Their study, published in the journal Nature, shows that it is possible to reproduce the key effects of these theories in a laboratory without spinning anything at all.
Instead of using a physically rotating object, the research team built a special radio-frequency device that creates what they call “synthetic rotation.”
The device stays completely still, but its electrical properties change in a carefully controlled pattern over time. To electromagnetic waves passing through it, the changing pattern looks as if the device is spinning at extremely high speed.
The device is made from a ring-shaped network of electronic components called resonators. These components are programmed so that their properties change one after another in a circular pattern.
Although nothing actually moves, the waves traveling through the device behave as though they are interacting with a rapidly rotating object.
When the researchers sent electromagnetic waves into the system, something remarkable happened. Certain waves were able to draw energy from the synthetic rotation and became stronger as they traveled through the device. This closely matched the behavior predicted decades ago by Penrose and Zel’dovich.
The researchers say this is the first successful demonstration of this type of wave amplification using synthetic rotation. It transforms an idea that once belonged only to theoretical physics into a real laboratory experiment.
One exciting feature of this approach is that synthetic rotation can imitate speeds that would be impossible to achieve with ordinary mechanical spinning. In fact, the moving pattern created inside the device can appear to travel faster than the speed of light. This does not break the laws of physics because no physical object is actually moving that fast. Instead, it is only the changing pattern that creates the effect.
This new technology gives scientists a powerful way to study extreme physical conditions that normally exist only around black holes or other unusual objects in space.
Instead of waiting for rare astronomical observations, researchers can now investigate similar physics inside a laboratory where experiments can be carefully controlled and repeated.
The discovery may also have practical benefits beyond astrophysics. The same ideas could help scientists develop better wireless communication systems, improve optical technologies that use light to carry information, and advance quantum technologies for future computing and secure communications.
Although more work is needed before the technique is used in everyday technology, the study marks an important step forward.
By creating the illusion of ultrafast rotation without moving parts, researchers have opened a new window into some of the most fascinating and mysterious physics in the universe while also creating opportunities for future technological innovation.
