Energy-Stealing Zel'dovich Effect Confirmed Using Electromagnetic Fields 50 Years After Being Proposed

Using the effect it could even be possible to generate photons from the quantum vacuum.

James Felton
Senior Staff Writer

Edited
by
Francesca Benson

A50-year-old idea about electromagnetic waves known as the Zel’dovich effect has been tested by physicists in the lab, and proven to be correct.

The idea behind the Zel’dovich effect came from a strange place. In 1969, British physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose suggested that energy could be extracted from black holes by lowering an object into the ergosphere (the region just outside of the event horizon) and allowing it to accelerate the object, stealing some of the black hole's energy. The idea, known as the Penrose process, requires negative energy to be acquired by the object in order for it to be recovered from the black hole – otherwise, all you'd be doing is feeding the black hole.

We don't have any conveniently close black holes to play with (probably thankfully), but a few years later, Belarusian physicist Yakov Zel’dovich came up with a far more practical way to test the concept of stealing extra energy from a rotating system.

The idea has links to the doppler effect, which can make light appear red or blue shifted depending on how the emitting object is moving relative to us, as well as the rotational doppler effect.

More:
https://www.iflscience.com/energy-stealing-zeldovich-effect-confirmed-using-electromagnetic-fields-50-years-after-being-proposed-76121