For the first time created a magnetic "wormhole"

“Wormholes” are cosmic tunnels that can be used to connect two remote regions of our Universe. They were popularized by famous theoretical physicists and many authors (books, films) of science fiction, like: Stargate, Star Trek, or one of the newest Interstellar. Using modern technology, it would be impossible to create a gravitational wormhole just because it took a huge amount of gravitational energy, and we still do not know how to generate it. However, in electromagnetism, the progress of metamaterials and the invisibility effect has allowed researchers to progress in achieving several goals.

The scientists of the Department of Physics from the laboratory of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (the Department of Physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) have developed and created the first experimental wormhole that can connect two areas of space with a magnet. It consists of a tunnel that transmits a magnetic field from one point to another, and at the same time the field itself cannot be detected, it is just invisible all the way.
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The researchers used metamaterials and meta-surfaces to build an experimental tunnel. From the source: a magnet or an electromagnet, a magnetic field appears at the other end of the wormhole in the form of an isolated magnetic monopole. This result itself is already quite strange, and the presence of a magnetic monopole (the monopole is a magnet with only one pole) makes it unique, since such a phenomenon does not exist in nature. And the main effect is that the magnetic field travels from one point to another through a dimension that is beyond, well known to us, three dimensions.

The wormhole itself, in this experiment, is a sphere of different layers: the outer layer with a ferromagnetic surface, the second inner layer, is made of superconducting material, and the inner ferromagnetic sheet is rolled into a cylinder and crosses the sphere from one end to the other. The sphere is designed in such a way that it is impossible to detect the magnetic field from the outside.

The magnetic wormhole is an analogue of gravitational, since “it changes the topology of space, as if the inner region was magnetically erased from space,” explains Alvar Sanchez (Àlvar Sánchez), a leading researcher.

The same researchers have already created magnetic fibers in 2014 — devices that are capable of transporting a magnetic field from one end to the other. However, this fiber could be detected with a magnet. The currently developed wormhole is a fully three-dimensional device, without the ability to detect a magnetic field.

This is a discovery, a big step forward for the spheres - where magnetic fields are used. For example in medicine. Perhaps this technology will increase patient comfort during MRI scans and they will no longer have to be located inside the MRI detector or will allow MRI scans of different parts of the body at the same time.

This study, published in Scientific Reports . Researchers from the UAB Department of Physics Jordi Prat, Carles Navau and Álvar Sánchez, who is also a teacher at the ICREA Academy, participated in the development .

Additional information Superconductivity Group UAB