The paradox traces back to work by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s. Using semi-classical calculations, Hawking showed that black holes are not completely black. Instead, they emit a faint form of radiation that slowly drains their energy, causing them to shrink and eventually disappear.

That result created a serious problem. According to quantum mechanics, information cannot be destroyed. Yet if a black hole evaporates completely, all information about the matter that fell into it appears to vanish as well. This apparent contradiction became known as the black hole information paradox.

A new study led by Richard Pinčák and published in General Relativity and Gravitation proposes a different outcome. The researchers suggest that the answer may lie in the geometry of a higher dimensional universe.

Extra Dimensions and Twisted Spacetime

The team investigated a version of gravity known as Einstein-Cartan theory, formulated in 7 dimensions on a mathematical structure called a G2-manifold with torsion.

Unlike Einstein's General Relativity, which describes spacetime as something that can bend or curve, Einstein-Cartan theory also allows spacetime to twist. This twisting is known as spacetime torsion.

According to the model, torsion becomes especially important at the extreme densities associated with the Planck scale. Under those conditions, it generates a repulsive force that works against gravitational collapse.

The researchers found that this repulsive effect can stop the final stage of Hawking evaporation. Rather than disappearing completely, a black hole would leave behind a stable "remnant" with a predicted mass of about 9*10^-41 kg.

Black Hole Remnants as Information Storage

If a black hole never fully vanishes, the next question is obvious: what happens to the information it contains?

The researchers propose that the remnant serves as a long term information repository. In their framework, information is stored through a spectrum of "quasi-normal modes" associated with the remnant's structure.

More specifically, quantum information becomes encoded within long lived "vibrations" of the torsion field that exist inside the remnant's geometry.

Their calculations suggest that a remnant left behind by a black hole with the mass of the Sun could store approximately 1.515*10⁷⁷ qubits of information. According to the researchers, that capacity is exactly sufficient to preserve the information needed to resolve the paradox.

A Possible Connection to the Higgs Field

The study also reaches beyond black holes and into particle physics.

The researchers argue that reducing the geometry from 7 dimensions to 4 dimensions, the spacetime we experience, naturally produces the electroweak scale ~246$ GeV). This energy scale is closely associated with the Higgs field, which is responsible for giving elementary particles their mass.

Within the model, the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the torsion field is dynamically identified with the electroweak scale (about 246 GeV).

As a result, the same geometric mechanism that prevents black holes from completely evaporating and preserves quantum information could also provide a geometric explanation for the mass hierarchy problem, one of the long standing challenges in particle physics.

How Could the Theory Be Tested?

If extra dimensions play such a fundamental role, why have scientists not observed them directly?

According to the study, the particles linked to these dimensions (Kaluza-Klein excitations) would have masses of roughly 8.6*10¹⁵ GeV. That energy scale is about seven orders of magnitude beyond what the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can reach.

However, the authors emphasize that being beyond the reach of current particle accelerators does not make the theory impossible to test.

Because the framework is built on specific geometric relationships, it produces concrete predictions that could potentially be investigated through astronomical observations.

One possibility involves the stable black hole remnants themselves. The predicted remnants (9*10^-41 kg) could contribute to Dark Matter. Detecting the gravitational effects of these proposed "Planckian relics" would provide direct support for the theory.

The model also makes distinctive predictions about how information is encoded in the remnants' "vibrations" (quasi-normal modes), providing a mathematical signature that sets it apart from competing ideas.

In addition, the extremely high energy scales involved are characteristic of the early universe. That means traces of the proposed 7-dimensional geometry might be preserved in the Cosmic Microwave Background or in primordial gravitational waves.

By connecting black holes, quantum information, extra dimensions, and the Higgs field within a single framework, the study offers an ambitious attempt to address multiple outstanding problems in physics. If the idea proves correct, the black hole information paradox may not require a revision of quantum mechanics after all. Instead, it could point toward a deeper understanding of reality rooted in a 7-dimensional structure of spacetime.