Science & Tech · Science & Environment · 48 mins ago
Einstein’s equations suggest gravity fields can break and reconnect
Physicists Luca Comisso and Felipe A. Asenjo found that gravity may reconnect under certain conditions, based on calculations using Einstein’s equations.
The proposed process resembles magnetic reconnection, in which tangled magnetic fields in the Sun change their connections and release energy.
In their mathematical description, gravity’s structure is made of sheets in four-dimensional spacetime, rather than the lines used to describe magnetic fields.
When those gravitational sheets reconnect, energy could flow from gravity into matter.
The sheets are mathematical representations, not physical surfaces that literally tear, and the work does not change general relativity or add new physics.
The idea may help explain gravity under extreme conditions, including during black-hole collisions, where understanding spacetime can be difficult.
Further work could help scientists identify the rules governing gravitational fields in such environments.
Physicists Luca Comisso and Felipe A. Asenjo say Einstein’s equations allow gravitational fields to break and reconnect under certain conditions.
They call the process gravitational reconnection, an analogy to magnetic reconnection in plasma.
The calculations suggest this process can transfer energy from gravity into matter.
Gravitational fields are represented mathematically as sheets in four-dimensional space-time, rather than as magnetic field lines.
The researchers say their findings identify principles within general relativity and do not introduce new physics.
- Who
- Physicists Luca Comisso of Columbia University and Felipe A. Asenjo of Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile.
- What
- Their calculations suggest gravitational fields can break and reconnect, potentially transferring energy into matter.
- When
- The articles were published on November 8 and November 10, 2026. The date of the study’s publication is not stated.
- Where
- The work concerns gravitational fields in four-dimensional space-time. The researchers are affiliated with institutions in the United States and Chile.
- Why
- The researchers investigated whether gravity shares properties with magnetic fields and how it may behave under extreme conditions.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Comisso, Asenjo, and Maricarmen A. Winkler published an earlier investigation into restrictions on how space-time can change.
Comisso and Asenjo used Einstein’s equations to examine whether gravitational fields could reconnect.
The study titled “Reconnection of Gravitational Fields” was published in Physical Review D; its publication date is not stated.
- Researchers
- Luca Comisso and Felipe A. Asenjo
- Institution
- Columbia University and Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile
- Process
- Gravitational reconnection
- Space-time dimensions
- Four: three dimensions of space and one of time
- Study journal
- Physical Review D
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What people are saying
We are not modifying general relativity or introducing new physics beyond it. Rather, we are identifying physical principles that have remained unrecognized for more than a century
Magnetic reconnection is when these field lines, in some specific configuration, break and reattach in a different configuration
When they break and reconnect, they release energy.
It takes energy from the magnetic field and gives it to the particles in the plasma, producing explosions, energetic events.