Since the existence of wormholes was first predicted in 1916, scientists have been able to study it only theoretically and have never observed this mysterious phenomenon.
A recent article published in Physical Review D predicts that wormholes may be hiding in plain sight.
The researchers hypothesized a static, traversable, i.e., not evolving or rotating wormhole, and simulated the light emitted directly by this wormhole, analyzed its polarization, and reconstructed an indirect image of the wormhole using the polarized light image.
However, when comparing the directly simulated wormhole image with the polarized light image of a static black hole, the researchers found that the two are almost identical, with less than 4% difference in polarization intensity and direction.
However, because the polarization patterns of wormholes and black holes are similar, but their observable radii are very different, the two can still be distinguished by indirect images.
Also, the polarization intensity of the wormhole is an order of magnitude larger than that of the black hole in the indirect images.
The team said they are planning to find other signals to distinguish between black holes and wormholes because current telescope technology cannot meet the level of precision needed to measure polarization effects.
