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Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

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Scientists Explore How Quantum Vacuum Energy Behaves Inside a Wormhole

Empty space may look completely silent and lifeless, but according to quantum physics, it is actually full of invisible activity. Tiny particles and energy fluctuations constantly appear and disappear everywhere in the Universe. These fluctuations can create real physical forces, even in a vacuum. One of the best-known examples of this strange phenomenon is called the Casimir effect.

Now, researchers led by Arista Romadani have studied how this mysterious quantum effect behaves inside a wormhole-like spacetime at different temperatures. Their work explores how quantum vacuum energy changes when gravity, curved spacetime, and heat are all involved together.

The study gives scientists a better understanding of how quantum physics and gravity interact in extreme environments and may help future research into wormholes and exotic spacetime structures.

What Is the Casimir Effect?

The Casimir effect is a tiny force created by quantum fluctuations in empty space.

In 1948, physicist Hendrik Casimir predicted that if two perfectly flat plates are placed extremely close together, they would attract each other even in a vacuum. This happens because only certain quantum waves can exist in the narrow space between the plates, while many more fluctuations can exist outside them. The imbalance creates a small force pushing the plates together.

Although the force is extremely tiny, many experiments over the years have confirmed that the Casimir effect is real.

Today, scientists study the Casimir effect not only because it is important for understanding quantum physics, but also because it may have applications in nanotechnology and microscopic machines.

The Casimir Effect in Different Fields

The original Casimir effect involved electromagnetic fields, but scientists later discovered that similar effects can happen in other quantum fields too.

These include:

  • Scalar fields

  • Vector fields

  • Fermion fields

Each field behaves differently depending on the geometry of the system and the boundary conditions applied.

In this new study, the researchers focused on a massless scalar field trapped between two parallel plates. They used Dirichlet boundary conditions, which simply means the field becomes zero at the surfaces of the plates.

This restriction changes the allowed quantum vibrations between the plates and produces Casimir energy.

Why Study Wormholes?

A wormhole is a hypothetical tunnel connecting two distant points in spacetime. In theory, a traversable wormhole could allow travel across huge cosmic distances much faster than normal space travel.

However, wormholes face a major problem. Gravity naturally tries to collapse them.

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, keeping a wormhole open may require something called exotic matter — matter with negative energy density.

Interestingly, the Casimir effect can produce negative energy under certain conditions. Because of this, many scientists believe quantum vacuum energy might help support traversable wormholes.

Previous studies already explored Casimir energy inside wormhole geometries, but most of them only examined systems at absolute zero temperature.

Real physical systems, however, are not perfectly cold. Temperature can strongly influence quantum effects, especially in curved spacetime. That is why the new study is important.

What the Researchers Investigated

Romadani and the research team studied a Schwarzschild-like wormhole spacetime. They imagined two parallel plates orbiting around the wormhole while a massless scalar field existed between them.

The researchers performed their calculations in what is called a comoving frame. This is a reference frame moving together with the plates. In this frame, physics becomes easier to describe because the plates appear stationary.

To describe the scalar field properly in curved spacetime, the team used a mathematical tool called an orthonormal tetrad frame. This method helps translate curved spacetime physics into a form that locally behaves like flat spacetime.

Using this setup, the scientists calculated the vacuum energy density created by the scalar field.

The Problem of Infinite Energy

One major challenge quickly appeared.

The vacuum energy calculations produced infinities. This is common in quantum field theory because vacuum fluctuations can mathematically contribute endless amounts of energy.

Of course, infinite physical energy does not make sense in reality.

To solve this problem, the researchers used two advanced mathematical techniques:

  • The Schwinger proper-time method

  • Riemann zeta regularization

These methods allow scientists to separate physically meaningful quantities from mathematical infinities.

After applying these procedures, the team obtained a finite and renormalized Casimir energy density for the wormhole spacetime.

Gravity Changes the Casimir Energy

One important result was that the Casimir energy inside the Schwarzschild-like wormhole became smaller compared to flat spacetime.

This shows that gravity and curved spacetime can directly affect quantum vacuum fluctuations.

The geometry of spacetime changes the allowed quantum modes between the plates, which changes the vacuum energy itself.

This connection between gravity and quantum fields is one of the most interesting areas of modern theoretical physics.

Adding Temperature to the System

The researchers then studied what happens when temperature is included.

To do this, they used the Matsubara formalism, a standard method in thermal quantum field theory.

Again, the thermal calculations initially produced divergent terms. The team used regularization and renormalization procedures to remove these infinities and obtain meaningful results.

One of the biggest discoveries of the study came from this part of the work.

After renormalization, the thermal correction to the Casimir free energy no longer depended on the wormhole geometry.

Instead, the correction depended only on:

  • Temperature

  • Distance between the plates

This happened because the calculations were done in the comoving frame, which locally behaves like flat spacetime.

How Temperature Affects the Casimir Effect

The researchers found that the thermal correction to the renormalized Casimir free energy gradually decreases as temperature increases.

They also calculated several thermodynamic quantities connected to the Casimir effect, including:

  • Entropy

  • Internal energy

  • Heat capacity

The thermal corrections to entropy and internal energy increased steadily as temperature rose and eventually approached constant values.

Interestingly, entropy increased faster at low temperatures compared to internal energy.

The heat capacity behaved differently. It first increased with temperature, reached a maximum value, and then slowly decreased toward zero at very high temperatures.

Behavior Near Absolute Zero

The low-temperature results were especially important because they tested whether the theory obeyed the laws of thermodynamics.

The researchers found that several different effects contribute at low temperatures:

  • Modified low-frequency quantum modes

  • Blackbody radiation inside the cavity

  • Exponentially suppressed quantum corrections

As the temperature approached absolute zero:

  • The internal energy approached the standard zero-temperature Casimir energy

  • The entropy approached zero

This perfectly agrees with the third law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy should vanish at absolute zero.

This agreement shows that the mathematical framework used in the study is physically consistent.

Why This Research Matters

This research helps scientists better understand how quantum vacuum effects behave in curved spacetime and under thermal conditions.

The work is important because it connects three major areas of physics:

  • Quantum mechanics

  • Thermodynamics

  • General relativity

The study may also help future investigations into traversable wormholes and exotic spacetime structures.

Although wormholes remain hypothetical, understanding how quantum fields behave inside them could provide valuable clues about the fundamental nature of the Universe.

Future Research Directions

The researchers believe many extensions of this work are possible in the future.

Scientists could study:

  • Massive quantum fields

  • Different boundary conditions

  • Rotating wormholes

  • Magnetic field effects

  • Strong gravitational fields

  • Neutron star wormhole systems

Future work may also explore whether these thermal Casimir effects could ever become observable in astrophysical environments.

For now, the study highlights a remarkable fact about our Universe: even empty space is filled with hidden quantum activity, and this activity may play an important role in some of the most extreme structures in the cosmos.

Reference: Arista Romadani, Apriadi Salim Adam, Ar Rohim, Bintoro Anang Subagyo, Agus Purwanto, "Thermal Casimir Effect in A Schwarzschild-like Wormhole Spacetime", Arxiv, 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.26743

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