Its called math. Math works on earth and the same math works in space.
James Clerk Maxwell was a scientist that used analogies to approach problems he didn’t understand using similar behavior in things he did. He explained magnetic and electric flow using the mathematics of fluid flows and he was right even though they had no idea what was actually “flowing” (electrons).
In this case the analogy is interesting but not really that informative. The problem is they are using the behavior of actual atoms (real) to explain the proposed behavior of virtual particles at the boundary of a black hole (not real). Quantum field scientists understand that virtual particles are fictions used in Feynman diagrams to make the math easier and don’t exist. Hawking understood this as well and the idea that virtual particles would “fall into” a black hole would make him laugh. Hawking radiation is a function of entanglement entropy at the boundary of a region of space and not some fairy tale of virtual particle splitting.
It does, but not all math is physics.