Start sweeping the universe by rubbing the CPU with your hands.

Chapter 303 Unreachable Energy Level

In this way, the two teams started a unique chase next to this extreme star that was bright white, too dazzling to look directly at, and whose radiation was powerful enough to scorch people instantly.

White dwarfs are the corpses of intermediate-mass stars like the sun. Just like this white dwarf, its predecessor star was originally more massive than the sun.

But as the nuclear fusion fuel is consumed, its volume gradually expands, and the core gradually compresses, eventually losing a lot of mass. Only the core, which is about 0.5 times the mass of the sun, remains, and is compressed into a planet only larger than the earth. One point of extreme stars.

It still has extremely high temperatures and radiation. However, this energy is just the "residual warmth" of past stars. When this energy slowly dissipates, the white dwarf star will gradually cool down and eventually turn into a black dwarf star.

However, this process is too long, even exceeding the age of the universe. Therefore, there is no black dwarf star in the current universe.

In this extremely harsh environment, the scientific research fleet chased the target asteroid over a distance of more than 17 billion kilometers. It took ten days and almost rotations around the white dwarf before finally catching up. it.

At this moment, the human scientific expedition team and engineers were truly immersed in the powerful gravitational field of this white dwarf star.

If this asteroid does not move at a high speed and offsets the gravity of the white dwarf, then people at a distance of about 2.3 kilometers from the white dwarf will feel a gravity that is approximately times that of the Earth.

For comparison, even the largest star in the solar system, the surface gravity of the sun is only a few hundred times that of the earth, and it is impossible to compare with it.

Such a powerful gravitational field even triggers extremely obvious relativistic effects.

Engineers on the asteroid perceive the speed of time differently than engineers farther away on other missions.

There is a difference of about 4.6% between the two. That is, every time 954 seconds pass for people on the asteroid, 1000 seconds pass for people further away.

This is just a white dwarf star, and its distance is 10,000 kilometers. If it is a neutron star, the relativistic effects will be more obvious.

If it is a black hole and it is extremely close, then it is not impossible that every second that passes around the black hole, the universe outside the black hole will experience the entire process from the birth of the big bang to the final demise of the entire universe.

Or in other words, even if the universe has a lifespan of more than 10 billion years at this moment, the time around the black hole may not even have passed for a second.

Even time there simply stood still.

Han Yang didn't know what the situation was at this moment.

With the knowledge he possesses, he is still unable to truly understand black holes and explore what is going on around and inside black holes.

He only knew that everything in the universe was so wonderful.

Wearing heavy special space suits, human scientists and engineers landed on the asteroid orbiting 40 Eridanus B.

Its orbit is unstable. In fact, according to observations, it began to orbit the white dwarf star 40 Eridani B only more than years ago. However, after at most years, it will break away from its current orbit.

After all, this is a triple star system, and the gravitational relationship is too chaotic and unstable.

Compared with the lifespan of stars, a short period of 120,000 years is only a blink of an eye. Human civilization seized this momentary opportunity and began to dig holes on it, preparing to build a neutrino telescope.

Human engineers went all out, and with Han Yang's secret help, the huge neutrino telescope was completed in just one year.

The newly built neutrino telescope, or proton decay observer, has a volume of about 500,000 cubic meters. Accordingly, about 500,000 cubic meters of ultrapure water is needed to fill it.

Five hundred thousand cubic meters of water is half a million tons. This is a large amount, but there is no shortage of water in the 40 Eridani galaxy.

There are a large number of icy comets, icy asteroids, etc. orbiting these three stars. Even because of the gravitational battle between stars, large amounts of water ice are often thrown out of the galaxy.

A rough estimate is that at least 100 million tons of water are thrown out every year.

Not to mention that a large number of non-ice asteroids actually have a large amount of water ice accumulated on their surfaces.

Even the back side of the selected asteroid has a large amount of unmelted water ice.

People built an ultrapure water refining factory directly on the asteroid, directly used local materials, and then poured the refined ultrapure water into huge containers.

After that it's just a matter of waiting.

Although the lifespan of protons is extremely long, up to billions of billions of years, it is obvious that Han Yang does not need to wait that long.

The so-called proton lifetime actually refers to the probability of its decay. That is, the mathematical expectation value of a proton decaying in 10 billion billion billion years is one.

10亿亿亿亿年有3.15*10^40秒，反过来，一颗质子一秒钟的衰变概率，便是3.15*10^40之一。

To use another analogy, if Han Yang has 3.15*10^40 protons in his hand, then from a mathematical probability perspective, wouldn’t it mean that one proton decays approximately every second?

The neutrino telescope is such a device that increases the probability of proton decay by enriching a large number of protons—water atoms also contain protons. Once proton decay occurs, the speed of its secondary particles in water will exceed the speed of light in water, triggering Cherenkov radiation, which is captured.

This is the same mechanism by which neutrinos enter and are observed.

At this moment, under the numerous high-precision photomultipliers, all the subtle changes occurring in the ultrapure water are captured.

Han Yang saw that in just a few minutes, the first Cherenkov radiation event was captured.

But unfortunately, this is just a neutrino event.

It is extremely close to the white dwarf, and there are two real stars nearby. There are more neutrinos, and it is normal to observe neutrinos.

Han Yang could take advantage of this opportunity to study the internal structure of the white dwarf star through face-to-face observation with a neutrino telescope. In this way, even if no proton decay event is observed, the trip will not be in vain.

"Hmm... It's true. White dwarfs do indeed have a layered structure. There are convections inside, and earthquakes sometimes occur..."

Han Yang closely observed the movement of the white dwarf star.

Time passed quietly, and several days passed in the blink of an eye.

On this day, Han Yang once again captured a Cherenkov radiation event.

Unlike previous radiation events caused by neutrinos, this event seems to have some special properties.

Han Yang quickly analyzed the 3.6GB of data generated by this incident, and his spirits immediately lifted.

He suspected that this was a proton decay event!

But there is not enough evidence at the moment, and further observation is needed.

It doesn't matter, Han Yang has plenty of time and is not in a hurry.

Five days later, a second such special radiation event occurred. This time, after careful analysis and the introduction of many human scientists for joint analysis, people finally came to a conclusion.

This is proton decay!

In a strong gravitational field environment, proton decay actually occurs!

Although it is still unclear why the gravitational field can affect the decay probability of protons - this high probability involves the theory of everything, which is not something Han Yang can figure out yet - but it doesn't matter.

As long as proton decay does exist, it will close the last loophole that can unify the three basic forces of the strong force, the weak force, and the electromagnetic force!

After thousands of years of development, at this moment, Han Yang finally saw the hope of being promoted to a third-level civilization.

At the same time, Han Yang also truly solved the mystery of why there are so few stars in that distant galaxy.

Because under the influence of the super-strong gravitational field of the core black hole, the probability of proton decay in the galaxy is increased. Proton decay affects the collapse of the nebula, leading to a reduction in the number of stars.

The entire human scientific community was shaken by this discovery. Han Yang mobilized almost all the forces he could mobilize and devoted them all to the study of proton decay.

A decade-long study, a total of hundreds of proton decay observation events, and the different changes between these different events - the asteroid is constantly moving away from the white dwarf, the distance between the two is constantly expanding, and the intensity of the gravitational field is also increasing. Following changes, Han Yang finally calculated the exact probability of proton decay under different gravitational fields.

With this data and then substituted into the original grand unified theory, Han Yang immediately calculated the energy levels required to unify these three basic forces.

It is almost tens of thousands times higher than the energy level required for the unification of the electroweak force.

Only at such an energy level can the three basic forces be unified. Below this energy level, the three fundamental forces separate due to spontaneous breakdown.

The next thing to do is to truly verify it.

But at this time, Han Yang encountered difficulties again.

There is no other reason. This energy level is too high. Han Yang simply cannot build a particle collider with such an energy level.

If it can't be verified, then who knows if it's actually correct? If more scientific data cannot be obtained, how can the grand unified theory be truly applied to reality?

It cannot be applied, let alone truly become a third-level civilization.

Faced with this situation, the entire human scientific community has launched a big discussion. Scientists have put forward all kinds of fantastic ideas. Some people even proposed to push an asteroid to impact a white dwarf. The reason is that at the moment of impact, The unit energy level of some parts may reach this level, and then by observing certain effects of secondary particles, it can be confirmed whether the three basic forces are truly unified at a predetermined energy level.

But this proposal was questioned by many colleagues, who thought it was too whimsical. Han Yang also thought this was a bit ridiculous and not worth trying.

After this plan was rejected, dozens of other plans were proposed, but they were still rejected.

Finally, a scientist proposed a brand new solution, which caught Han Yang's attention.

"Borrowing the power of lightning... Well, at least this plan seems a bit reliable..."

(End of this chapter)