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For other uses, see Black hole (disambiguation).

Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The ratio between the
black hole Schwarzschild radius and the observer distance to it is 1:9. Of note is the gravitational
lensing effect known as an Einstein ring, which produces a set of two fairly bright and large but
highly distorted images of the Cloud as compared to its actual angular size.

 


Einstein field equations

Introduction
Mathematical formulation
Resources




 




Kepler problem · Lenses · Waves
Frame-dragging · Geodetic effect
Event horizon · Singularity
j
 





 

 



This box: view ‡ talk ‡ edit

According to the general theory of relativity, a
  is a region of space from which
nothing, including light, can escape. It is the result of the deformation of spacetime caused by a
very compact mass. Around a black hole there is an undetectable surface which marks the point
of no return, called an event horizon. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that
comes towards it, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics.[1] Under
the theory of quantum mechanics black holes possess a temperature and emit Hawking radiation.

Despite its invisible interior, a black hole can be observed through its interaction with other
matter. A black hole can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a
region in space. Alternatively, when gas falls into a stellar black hole from a companion star, the
gas spirals inward, heating to very high temperatures and emitting large amounts of radiation that
can be detected from earthbound and earth-orbiting telescopes.

Astronomers have identified numerous stellar black hole candidates, and have also found
evidence of supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. After observing the motion of
nearby stars for 16 years, in 2008 astronomers found compelling evidence that a supermassive
black hole of more than 4 million solar masses is located near the Sagittarius A* region in the
center of our own Milky Way galaxy.

!
[hide]

ÔÊ 1 History
‘Ê 1.1 General relativity
‘Ê 1.2 Golden age
ÔÊ 2 Properties and structure
‘Ê 2.1 Classification
îÊ 2.1.1 By physical properties
 îÊ 2.1.2 By mass
‘Ê 2.2 Event horizon
‘Ê 2.3 Singularity
‘Ê 2.4 Photon sphere
‘Ê 2.5 Ergosphere
ÔÊ 3 Formation and evolution
‘Ê 3.1 Gravitational collapse
îÊ 3.1.1 Primordial black holes in The Big Bang
‘Ê 3.2 High energy collisions
‘Ê 3.3 Growth
‘Ê 3.4 Evaporation
ÔÊ 4 Observational evidence
‘Ê 4.1 Accretion of matter
‘Ê 4.2 X-ray binaries
îÊ 4.2.1 Quiescence and advection-dominated accretion flow
îÊ 4.2.2 Quasi-periodic oscillations
‘Ê 4.3 Gamma ray bursts
‘Ê 4.4 Galactic nuclei
‘Ê 4.5 Gravitational lensing
ÔÊ 5 Open questions
‘Ê 5.1 Entropy and Hawking radiation
‘Ê 5.2 Black hole unitarity
‘Ê 5.3 Fuzzballs
ÔÊ 6 See also
ÔÊ a References
ÔÊ 8 Further reading
‘Ê 8.1 Popular reading
‘Ê 8.2 University textbooks and monographs
‘Ê 8.3 Research papers
ÔÊ 9 External links

i 
Simulation of Gravitational lensing by a black hole which distorts the image of a galaxy in the
background. (Click for larger animation.)

The idea of a body so massive that even light could not escape was put forward by geologist
John Michell in a letter written to Henry Cavendish in 1a83 to the Royal Society:

If the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density as the Sun were to exceed that of the Sun in
the proportion of 500 to 1, a body falling from an infinite height towards it would have acquired
at its surface greater velocity than that of light, and consequently supposing light to be attracted
by the same force in proportion to its vis inertiae, with other bodies, all light emitted from such a
body would be made to return towards it by its own proper gravity.
²r




In 1a96, mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace promoted the same idea in the first and second
editions of his book      (it was removed from later editions).[3][4]
Such "dark stars" were largely ignored in the nineteenth century, since light was then thought to
be a massless wave and therefore not influenced by gravity. Unlike the modern black hole
concept, the object behind the horizon of a dark star is assumed to be stable against collapse.


 


In 1915, Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity, having earlier shown that
gravity does in fact influence light's motion. A few months later, Karl Schwarzschild gave the
solution for the gravitational field of a point mass and a spherical mass,[5] showing that a black
hole could theoretically exist. The Schwarzschild radius is now known to be the radius of the
event horizon of a non-rotating black hole, but this was not well understood at that time, for
example Schwarzschild himself thought it was not physical. Johannes Droste, a student of
Hendrik Lorentz, independently gave the same solution for the point mass a few months after
Schwarzschild and wrote more extensively about its properties. In 1930, astrophysicist
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculated, using general relativity, that a non-rotating body of
electron-degenerate matter above 1.44 solar masses (the Chandrasekhar limit) would collapse.
His arguments were opposed by Arthur Eddington, who believed that something would
inevitably stop the collapse. Eddington was partly correct: a white dwarf slightly more massive
than the Chandrasekhar limit will collapse into a neutron star, which is itself stable because of
the Pauli exclusion principle. But in 1939, Robert Oppenheimer and others predicted that stars
above approximately three solar masses (the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit) would
collapse into black holes for the reasons presented by Chandrasekhar.[6] Oppenheimer and his co-
authors used Schwarzschild's system of coordinates (the only coordinates available in 1939),
which produced mathematical singularities at the Schwarzschild radius, in other words some of
the terms in the equations became infinite at the Schwarzschild radius. This was interpreted as
indicating that the Schwarzschild radius was the boundary of a bubble in which time stopped.
This is a valid point of view for external observers, but not for infalling observers. Because of
this property, the collapsed stars were called "frozen stars,"[a] because an outside observer would
see the surface of the star frozen in time at the instant where its collapse takes it inside the
Schwarzschild radius. This is a known property of modern black holes, but it must be
emphasized that the light from the surface of the frozen star becomes redshifted very fast, turning
the black hole black very quickly. Many physicists could not accept the idea of time standing
still at the Schwarzschild radius, and there was little interest in the subject for over 20 years.

 
"

See also: golden age of general relativity

In 1958, David Finkelstein introduced the concept of the event horizon by presenting Eddington-
Finkelstein coordinates, which enabled him to show that "The Schwarzschild surface r = 2 m is
not a singularity, but that it acts as a perfect unidirectional membrane: causal influences can
cross it in only one direction".[8] This did not strictly contradict Oppenheimer's results, but
extended them to include the point of view of infalling observers. All theories up to this point,
including Finkelstein's, covered only non-rotating black holes. In 1963, Roy Kerr found the exact
solution for a rotating black hole. The rotating singularity of this solution was a ring, and not a
point. A short while later, Roger Penrose was able to prove that singularities occur inside any
black hole. In 196a, astronomers discovered pulsars,[9][10] and within a few years could show that
the known pulsars were rapidly rotating neutron stars. Until that time, neutron stars were also
regarded as just theoretical curiosities. So the discovery of pulsars awakened interest in all types
of ultra-dense objects that might be formed by gravitational collapse.

Physicist John Wheeler is widely credited with coining the term a
 in his 196a public
lecture 
  , as an alternative to the more cumbersome
"gravitationally completely collapsed star." However, Wheeler insisted that someone else at the
conference had coined the term and he had merely adopted it as useful shorthand. The term was
also cited in a 1964 letter by Anne Ewing to the AAAS:

According to Einstein¶s general theory of relativity, as mass is added to a degenerate star a

sudden collapse will take place and the intense gravitational field of the star will close in on
itself. Such a star then forms a "black hole" in the universe.
² ! " ##

   
  
See also: membrane paradigm

The No hair theorem states that, once it achieves a stable condition after formation, a black hole
has only three independent physical properties: mass, charge, and angular momentum.[12] Any
two black holes that share the same values for these properties, or parameters, are classically
indistinguishable.

These properties are special because they are visible from outside the black hole. For example, a
charged black hole repels other like charges just like any other charged object, despite the fact
that photons, the particles responsible for electric and magnetic forces, cannot escape from the
interior region. The reason is Gauss's law, the total electric flux going out of a big sphere always
stays the same, and measures the total charge inside the sphere. When charge falls into a black
hole, electric field lines still remain, poking out of the horizon, and these field lines conserve the
total charge of all the infalling matter. The electric field lines eventually spread out evenly over
the surface of the black hole, forming a uniform field-line density on the surface. The black hole
acts in this regard like a classical conducting sphere with a definite resistivity.[13] Similarly, the
total mass inside a sphere containing a black hole can be found by using the gravitational analog
of Gauss's law, far away from the black hole. Likewise, the angular momentum can be measured
from far away using frame dragging by the gravitomagnetic field.

When a black hole swallows any form of matter, its horizon oscillates like a stretchy membrane
with friction, a dissipative system, until it reaches a simple final state. This is different from
other field theories like electromagnetism or gauge theory, which never have any friction or
resistivity, because they are time reversible. Because the black hole eventually achieves a stable
state with only three parameters, there is no way to avoid losing information about the initial
conditions: The gravitational and electric fields of the black hole give very little information
about what went in. The information that is lost includes every quantity that cannot be measured
far away from the black hole horizon, including the total baryon number, lepton number, and all
the other nearly conserved pseudo-charges of particle physics. This behavior is so puzzling, that
it has been called the black hole information loss paradox.[14][15][16]

!



j 
   

The simplest black hole has mass but neither charge nor angular momentum. These black holes
are often referred to as Schwarzschild black holes after the physicist Karl Schwarzschild who
discovered this solution in 1915.[5] It was the first non-trivial exact solution to the Einstein field
equations to be discovered, and according to Birkhoff's theorem, the only vacuum solution that is
spherically symmetric.[1a] This means that there is no observable difference between the
gravitational field of such a black hole and that of any other spherical object of the same mass.
The popular notion of a black hole "sucking in everything" in its surroundings is therefore only
correct near the black hole horizon; far away, the external gravitational field is identical to that of
any other body of the same mass.[18]

More general black hole solutions were discovered later in the 20th century. The Reissner-
Nordström metric describes a black hole with electric charge, while the Kerr metric yields a
rotating black hole. The more generally known stationary black hole solution, the Kerr-Newman
metric, describes both charge and angular momentum.

While the mass of a black hole can take any positive value, the charge and angular momentum
are constrained by the mass. In natural units , the total charge and the total angular momentum
are expected to satisfy

for a black hole of mass .

Black holes saturating this inequality are called extremal. Solutions of Einstein's equations
violating the inequality do exist, but do not have a horizon. These solutions have naked
singularities and are deemed 
, as the cosmic censorship hypothesis rules out such
singularities due to the generic gravitational collapse of realistic matter.[19] This is supported by
numerical simulations.[20]

Due to the relatively large strength of the electromagnetic force, black holes forming from the
collapse of stars are expected to retain the nearly neutral charge of the star. Rotation, however, is
expected to be a common feature of compact objects, and the black-hole candidate binary X-ray
source GRS 1915+105[21] appears to have an angular momentum near the maximum allowed
value.

j



Black holes are commonly !
 #
 $

classified according to their Supermassive black hole 5 9
~10 ±10 MSun ~0.001±10 AU
mass, independent of angular
Intermediate-mass black hole ~103 MSun ~103 km = REarth
momentum . The size of a
black hole, as determined by the Stellar-mass ~10 MSun ~30 km
radius of the event horizon, or Micro black hole up to ~MMoon up to ~0.1 mm
Schwarzschild radius, is
proportional to the mass through

where is the Schwarzschild radius and is the mass of the Sun. A black hole's size and
mass are thus simply related independent of rotation. According to this criterion, black holes are
classed as:

ÔÊ Supermassive ± contain hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses, and are

thought to exist in the center of most galaxies,[22][23] including the Milky Way.[24] They
are thought to be responsible for active galactic nuclei, and presumably form either from
the coalescence of smaller black holes, or by the accretion of stars and gas onto them.
The largest known supermassive black hole is located in OJ 28a weighing in at 18 billion
solar masses.[25]

ÔÊ Intermediate ± contain thousands of solar masses. They have been proposed as a possible
power source for ultraluminous X-ray sources.[26] There is no known mechanism for them
to form directly, so they likely form via collisions of lower mass black holes, either in the
dense stellar cores of globular clusters or galaxies.[ ] Such creation events
should produce intense bursts of gravitational waves, which may be observed soon. The
boundary between super- and intermediate-mass black holes is a matter of convention.
Their lower mass limit, the maximum mass for direct formation of a single black hole
from collapse of a massive star, is poorly known at present, but is thought to be
somewhere well below 200 solar masses.
 ÔÊ Stellar-mass ± have masses ranging from a lower limit of about 1.4±3 solar masses (1.4 is
the Chandrasekhar limit and 3 is the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit for the
maximum mass of neutron stars) up to perhaps 15±20 solar masses. They are created by
the collapse of individual stars, or by the coalescence (inevitable, due to gravitational
radiation) of binary neutron stars. Stars may form with initial masses up to about
100 solar masses, or in the distant past, possibly even higher, but these shed most of their
outer massive layers during earlier phases of their evolution, either blown away in stellar
winds during the red giant, AGB, and Wolf-Rayet stages, or expelled in supernova
explosions for stars that turn into neutron stars or black holes. Being known mostly by
theoretical models for late-stage stellar evolution, the upper limit for the mass of stellar-
mass black holes is somewhat uncertain at present. The cores of still lighter stars form
white dwarfs.

ÔÊ Micro ± (also a
) have masses much less than that of a star. At these sizes,
quantum mechanics is expected to take effect. There is no known mechanism for them to
form via normal processes of stellar evolution, but certain inflationary scenarios predict
their production during the early stages of the evolution of the universe.[ ]
According to some theories of quantum gravity they may also be produced in the highly
energetic reaction produced by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere or even in particle
accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider.[ ] The theory of Hawking
radiation predicts that such black holes will evaporate in bright flashes of gamma
radiation. NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope satellite (formerly GLAST)
launched in 2008 is searching for such flashes.[2a]

 $

Main article: Event horizon

Far away from the black hole a particle can move in any
direction. It is only restricted by the speed of light.

Closer to the black hole spacetime starts to deform. There are

more paths going towards the black hole than paths moving
away.
The defining feature of a black
hole is the appearance of an
event horizon; a boundary in
spacetime beyond which
events cannot affect an outside
observer. As predicted by
general relativity, the presence Inside of the event horizon all paths bring the particle closer to
of a mass deforms spacetime the center of the black hole. It is no longer possible for the
in such a way that the paths particle to escape.
particles take tend towards the
mass. At the event horizon of a black hole this deformation becomes so strong that there are no
more paths that lead away from the black hole.[28] Once a particle is inside the horizon, moving
into the hole is as inevitable as moving forward in time (and can actually be thought of as
equivalent to doing so).

To a distant observer clocks near a black hole appear to tick more slowly than those further away
from the black hole.[29] Due to this effect (known as gravitational time dilation) the distant
observer will see an object falling into a black hole slow down as it approaches the event
horizon, taking an infinite time to reach it.[30] At the same time all processes on this object slow
down causing emitted light to appear redder and dimmer, an effect known as gravitational red
shift.[31] Eventually, the falling object becomes so dim that it can no longer be seen, at a point
just before it reaches the event horizon.

For a non rotating (static) black hole, the Schwarzschild radius delimits a spherical event
horizon. The Schwarzschild radius of an object is proportional to the mass.[32] Rotating black
holes have distorted, nonspherical event horizons. Since the event horizon is not a material
surface but rather merely a mathematically defined demarcation boundary, nothing prevents
matter or radiation from entering a black hole, only from exiting one. The description of black
holes given by general relativity is known to be an approximation, and it is expected that
quantum gravity effects become significant near the vicinity of the event horizon.[33] This allows
observations of matter in the vicinity of a black hole's event horizon to be used to indirectly
study general relativity and proposed extensions to it.

Though black holes themselves may not radiate energy, electromagnetic radiation and matter
particles may be radiated from just outside the event horizon via Hawking radiation.[34]

"


Main article: Gravitational singularity

At the center of a black hole lies the  , where matter is crushed to infinite density, the
pull of gravity is infinitely strong, and spacetime has infinite curvature.[35] This means that a
black hole's mass becomes entirely compressed into a region with zero volume.[36] This zero-
volume, infinitely dense region at the center of a black hole is called a gravitational singularity.
The singularity of a non-rotating black hole has zero length, width, and height; a rotating black
hole is smeared out to form a ring shape lying in the plane of rotation.[3a] The ring still has no
thickness and hence no volume.

The appearance of singularities in general relativity is commonly perceived as signaling the

breakdown of the theory.[38] This breakdown, however, is expected; it occurs in a situation where
quantum mechanical effects should describe these actions due to the extremely high density and
therefore particle interactions. To date it has not been possible to combine quantum and
gravitational effects into a single theory. It is generally expected that a theory of quantum gravity
will feature black holes without singularities.[39][40]

  

Main article: Photon sphere

The photon sphere is a spherical boundary of zero thickness such that photons moving along
tangents to the sphere will be trapped in a circular orbit. For non-rotating black holes, the photon
sphere has a radius 1.5 times the Schwarzschild radius. The orbits are dynamically unstable,
hence any small perturbation (such as a particle of infalling matter) will grow over time, either
setting it on an outward trajectory escaping the black hole or on an inward spiral eventually
crossing the event horizon.

While light can still escape from inside the photon sphere, any light that crosses the photon
sphere on an inbound trajectory will be captured by the black hole. Hence any light reaching an
outside observer from inside the photon sphere must have been emitted by objects inside the
photon sphere but still outside of the event horizon.

Other compact objects, such as neutron stars, can also have photon spheres.[41] This follows from
the fact that the gravitational field of an object does not depend on its actual size, hence any
object that is smaller than 1.5 times the Schwarzschild radius corresponding to its mass will
indeed have a photon sphere.

 "  

Main article: Ergosphere

The ergosphere is an oblate spheroid region outside of the event horizon, where objects cannot
remain stationary.

Rotating black holes are surrounded by a region of spacetime in which it is impossible to stand
still, called the ergosphere. This is the result of a process known as frame-dragging; general
relativity predicts that any rotating mass will tend to slightly "drag" along the spacetime
immediately surrounding it. Any object near the rotating mass will tend to start moving in the
direction of rotation. For a rotating black hole this effect becomes so strong near the event
horizon that an object would have to move faster than the speed of light in the opposite direction
to just stand still.[42]

The ergosphere of a black hole is bounded by, the (outer) event horizon on the inside and an
oblate spheroid, which coincides with the event horizon at the poles and is noticeably wider
around the equator. The outer boundary is sometimes called the  $.

Objects and radiation can escape normally from the ergosphere. In fact through the Penrose
process objects can emerge from the ergosphere with more energy than they entered. This energy
is taken from the rotational energy of the black hole causing it to slow down.[43]




 
Considering the exotic nature of black holes, it may be natural to question if such bizarre objects
could actually exist in nature or to suggest that they are merely pathological solutions to
Einstein's equations. Einstein himself wrongly thought that black holes would not form, because
he held that the angular momentum of collapsing particles would stabilize their motion at some
radius.[44] This led the general relativity community to dismiss all results to the contrary for many
years. However, a minority of relativists continued to contend that black holes were physical
objects,[45] and by the end of the 1960s, they had persuaded the majority of researchers in the
field that there is no obstacle to forming an event horizon.

Once an event horizon forms, Roger Penrose proved that a singularity will form somewhere
inside it. Shortly afterwards, Stephen Hawking showed that many cosmological solutions
describing the big bang have singularities, in the absence of scalar fields or other exotic matter
(see Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems). The Kerr solution, the no-hair theorem and the
laws of black hole thermodynamics showed that the physical properties of black holes were
simple and comprehensible, making them respectable subjects for research.[46] The primary
formation process for black holes is expected to be the gravitational collapse of heavy objects
such as stars, but there are also more exotic processes that can lead to the production of black
holes.







Main article: Gravitational collapse

Gravitational collapse occurs when an object's internal pressure is insufficient to resist the
object's own gravity. For stars this usually occurs either because a star has too little "fuel" left to
maintain its temperature, or because a star which would have been stable receives a lot of extra
matter in a way which does not raise its core temperature. In either case the star's temperature is
no longer high enough to prevent it from collapsing under its own weight (the ideal gas law
explains the connection between pressure, temperature, and volume).

The collapse may be stopped by the degeneracy pressure of the star's constituents, condensing
the matter in an exotic denser state. The result is one of the various types of compact star. Which
type of compact star is formed depends on the mass of the remnant - the matter left over after
changes triggered by the collapse (such as supernova or pulsations leading to a planetary nebula)
have blown away the outer layers. Note that this can be substantially less than the original star -
remnants exceeding 5 solar masses are produced by stars which were over 20 solar masses
before the collapse.

If the mass of the remnant exceeds ~3-4 solar masses (the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff
limit)²either because the original star was very heavy or because the remnant collected
additional mass through accretion of matter²even the degeneracy pressure of neutrons is
insufficient to stop the collapse. After this no known mechanism (except possibly quark
degeneracy pressure, see quark star) is powerful enough to stop the collapse and the object will
inevitably collapse to a black hole.

This gravitational collapse of heavy stars is assumed to be responsible for the formation of most
(if not all) stellar mass black holes.

 
 

 %j"j
"

Gravitational collapse requires great densities. In the current epoch of the universe these high
densities are only found in stars, but in the early universe shortly after the big bang densities
were much greater, possibly allowing for the creation of black holes. The high density alone is
not enough to allow the formation of black holes since a uniform mass distribution will not allow
the mass to bunch up. In order for primordial black holes to form in such a dense medium, there
must be initial density perturbations which can then grow under their own gravity. Different
models for the early universe vary widely in their predictions of the size of these perturbations.
Various models predict the creation of black holes, ranging from a Planck mass to hundreds of
thousands of solar masses.[4a] Primordial black holes could thus account for the creation of any
type of black hole.

i" " 

A simulated event in the CMS detector, a collision in which a micro black hole may be created.

Gravitational collapse is not the only process that could create black holes. In principle, black
holes could also be created in high energy collisions that create sufficient density. However, to
date, no such events have ever been detected either directly or indirectly as a deficiency of the
mass balance in particle accelerator experiments.[48] This suggests that there must be a lower
limit for the mass of black holes. Theoretically this boundary is expected to lie around the Planck
mass (~1019 GeV/c2 = ~2 × 10í8 kg), where quantum effects are expected to make the theory of
general relativity break down completely.[ ] This would put the creation of black holes
firmly out of reach of any high energy process occurring on or near the Earth. Certain
developments in quantum gravity however suggest that this bound could be much lower. Some
braneworld scenarios for example put the Planck mass much lower, may be even as low as 1
TeV/c2.[49] This would make it possible for micro black holes to be created in the high energy
collisions occurring when cosmic rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, or possibly in the new Large
Hadron Collider at CERN. These theories are however very speculative, and the creation of
black holes in these processes is deemed unlikely by many specialists.[ ]

 

Once a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing additional matter. Any black
hole will continually absorb interstellar dust from its direct surroundings and omnipresent cosmic
background radiation, but neither of these processes should significantly affect the mass of a
stellar black hole. More significant contributions can occur when the black hole formed in a
binary star system. After formation the black hole can then leech significant amounts of matter
from its companion.

Much larger contributions can be obtained when a black hole merges with other stars or compact
objects. The supermassive black holes suspected in the center of most galaxies are expected to
have formed from the coagulation of many smaller objects. The process has also been proposed
as the origin of some intermediate-mass black holes.

As an object approaches the event horizon, the horizon near the object bulges up and swallows
the object. Shortly thereafter the increase in radius (due to the extra mass) is distributed evenly
around the hole.




Main article: Hawking radiation

In 19a4, Stephen Hawking showed that black holes are not entirely black but emit small amounts
of thermal radiation.[50] He got this result by applying quantum field theory in a static black hole
background. The result of his calculations is that a black hole should emit particles in a perfect
black body spectrum. This effect has become known as Hawking radiation. Since Hawking's
result, many others have verified the effect through various methods.[51] If his theory of black
hole radiation is correct then black holes are expected to emit a thermal spectrum of radiation,
and thereby lose mass, because according to the theory of relativity mass is just highly
condensed energy ( = 2).[50] Black holes will shrink and evaporate over time. The
temperature of this spectrum (Hawking temperature) is proportional to the surface gravity of the
black hole, which for a Schwarzschild black hole is inversely proportional to the mass. Large
black holes, therefore, emit less radiation than small black holes.

A stellar black hole of 5 solar masses has a Hawking temperature of about 12 nanokelvins. This
is far less than the 2.a K produced by the cosmic microwave background. Stellar mass (and
larger) black holes receive more mass from the cosmic microwave background than they emit
through Hawking radiation and will thus grow instead of shrink. In order to have a Hawking
temperature larger than 2.a K (and be able to evaporate) a black hole needs to be lighter than the
Moon (and therefore a diameter of less than a tenth of a millimeter).

On the other hand if a black hole is very small, the radiation effects are expected to become very
strong. Even a black hole that is heavy compared to a human would evaporate in an instant. A
black hole the weight of a car (~10í24 m) would only take a nanosecond to evaporate, during
which time it would briefly have a luminosity more than 200 times that of the sun. Lighter black
holes are expected to evaporate even faster, for example a black hole of mass 1 TeV/2 would
take less than 10í88 seconds to evaporate completely. Of course, for such a small black hole
quantum gravitation effects are expected to play an important role and could even ± although
current developments in quantum gravity do not indicate so ± hypothetically make such a small
black hole stable.

4  



By their very nature black holes do not directly emit any signals other than the hypothetical
Hawking radiation. Since the Hawking radiation for an astrophysical black hole is predicted to
be very weak, this makes it impossible to directly detect astrophysical black holes from the
Earth. A possible exception to the Hawking radiation being weak is the last stage of the
evaporation of light (primordial) black holes. Searches for such flashes in the past has proven
unsuccessful and provides stringent limits on the possibility of existence of light primordial
black holes.[52] NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope launched in 2008 will continue the
search for these flashes.[53]

Astrophysicists searching for black holes thus have to rely on indirect observations. A black
hole's existence can sometimes be inferred by observing its gravitational interactions with its
surroundings.
 

 

See also: Accretion disc

Formation of extragalactic jets from a black hole's accretion disk

Due to conservation of angular momentum gas falling into the gravitational well created by a
massive object will typically form a disc-like structure around the object. Friction within the disc
causes angular momentum to be transported outward allowing matter to fall further inward
releasing potential energy and increasing the temperature of the gas.[54] In the case of compact
objects such as white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes the gas in the inner regions becomes
so hot that it will emit vast amounts of radiation (mainly X-rays), which may be detected by
telescopes. This process of accretion is one of the most efficient energy producing process
known; up to 40% of the rest mass of the accreted material can be emitted in radiation.[54] (In
nuclear fusion only about 1% of the rest mass will be emitted as energy.) In many cases accretion
discs are accompanied by relativistic jets emitted along the poles, carry away a lot of the energy.
The mechanism for the creation of these jets is currently not well understood.

As such many of the universe's more energetic phenomena have been attributed to the accretion
of matter on black holes. In particular Active Galactic Nuclei and quasars are thought to be the
accretion discs of supermassive black holes.[ ] Similarly, X-ray binaries are thought to
be binary star systems in which one of the two stars is a compact object accreting matter from its
companion.[ ] It has also been suggested that some ultraluminous X-ray sources may be
the accretion disks of intermediate-mass black holes.[55]

3
 


See also: X-ray binary

X-ray binaries are binary star systems that are luminous in the X-ray part of the spectrum. These
X-ray emissions are generally thought to be caused by one of the component stars being a
compact object accreting matter from the other (regular) star. The presence of an ordinary star in
such a system provides a unique opportunity for studying the central object and determining if it
might be a black hole.
Artist impression of a binary system with an accretion disk around a compact object being fed by
material from the companion star.

If such a system emits signals that can be directly traced back to the compact object, it cannot be
black hole. The absence of such a signal does however not exclude the possibility that the
compact object is a neutron star. By studying the companion star it is often possible to obtain the
orbital parameters of the system and obtain an estimate for the mass of the compact object. If this
is much larger than the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit (ie. the maximum mass a neutron
star can have before collapsing) then the object cannot be a neutron star and is generally
expected to be a black hole.[56]

The first strong candidate for a black hole, Cygnus X-1, was discovered in this way by Webster
and Murdin[5a] and Bolton[58] in 19a2.[59][60] Some doubt however remained due to the
uncertainties resultant from the companion star being much heavier than the candidate black
hole.[56] Currently, better candidates for black holes are found in a class of X-ray binaries called
soft X-ray transients.[56] In this class of system the companion star is relatively low mass
allowing for more accurate estimates in the black hole mass. Moreover, these system are only
active in X-ray for a period of several months once every 10±50 years. During the period of low
X-ray emission (called quiescence) the accretion disc is extemely faint allowing for detailed
observation of the companion star during this period. One of the best such candidates is V404
Cyg.

J

 


  

The faintness of the accretion disc during quiescence is thought to be caused by the flow entering
a mode called an advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF). In this mode, almost all the
energy generated by friction in the disc is swept along with the flow instead of radiated away. If
this model is correct, then it forms strong qualitative evidence for the presence of an event
horizon. Because, if the object at the center of the disc had a solid surface, it would emit large
amounts of radiation is the highly energetic gas hits the surface, an effect that is observed for
neutron stars in a similar state.[54]

J
  


See also: Quasi-periodic oscillations

The X-ray emissions from accretion disks sometimes exhibit a flickering around certain
frequencies. These signals are called quasi-periodic oscillations and are thought to be caused by
material moving along the inner edge of the accretion disk (the innermost stable circular orbit).
As such their frequency is linked to the mass of the compact object. They can thus be used as an
alternative way to determine the mass of potential black holes.[61]




  

Intense but one-time gamma ray bursts (GRBs) may signal the birth of "new" black holes,
because astrophysicists think that GRBs are caused either by the gravitational collapse of giant
stars[62] or by collisions between neutron stars,[63] and both types of event involve sufficient mass
and pressure to produce black holes. But it appears that a collision between a neutron star and a
black hole can also cause a GRB,[64] so a GRB is not proof that a "new" black hole has been
formed. All known GRBs come from outside our own galaxy, and most come from billions of
light years away[65] so the black holes associated with them are actually billions of years old.



 

See also: Active galactic nucleus

The jet originating from the center of M8a in this image comes from an active galactic nucleus
that may contain a supermassive black hole. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope/NASA/ESA.

It is now widely accepted that the center of every or at least nearly every galaxy contains a
supermassive black hole.[66][6a] The close observational correlation between the mass of this hole
and the velocity dispersion of the host galaxy's bulge, known as the M-sigma relation, strongly
suggests a connection between the formation of the black hole and the galaxy itself.[66]

For decades, astronomers have used the term "active galaxy" to describe galaxies with unusual
characteristics, such as unusual spectral line emission and very strong radio emission.[68][69]
However, theoretical and observational studies have shown that the active galactic nuclei (AGN)
in these galaxies may contain supermassive black holes.[68][69] The models of these AGN consist
of a central black hole that may be millions or billions of times more massive than the Sun; a
disk of gas and dust called an accretion disk; and two jets that are perpendicular to the accretion
disk.[69]

Although supermassive black holes are expected to be found in most AGN, only some galaxies'
nuclei have been more carefully studied in attempts to both identify and measure the actual
masses of the central supermassive black hole candidates. Some of the most notable galaxies
with supermassive black hole candidates include the Andromeda Galaxy, M32, M8a, NGC 3115,
NGC 33aa, NGC 4258, and the Sombrero Galaxy.[a0]

Currently, the best evidence for a supermassive black hole comes from the center of our own
Milky way.[a1] For sixteen years astronomers have tracked the positions of stars orbiting a central
massive object in a region called Sagittarius A*, one of which²as star called S2² has
completed a full orbit in that period. From the orbital data they were able to infer that there was a
spherical mass of 4.3 million solar masses contained within a radius of less than 0.002 lightyears.
This is still more than 3000 times the Schwarzschild radius corresponding to that mass. This is
consistent with the central object being a supermassive black hole.




 "

Further information: Gravitational lens

The deformation of spacetime around a massive object causes light rays to be deflected much
like light passing through an optic lens. The phenomenon is known as gravitational lensing, and
has been observed for very large massive objects like galaxies and galaxy clusters. It has
however never been observed for a black hole. Observation of lensing by a black hole would
allow general relativity to be tested in the region close to the horizon, where up till now it has
only been weakly constrained. As such, it would significantly strengthen the other evidence for
black holes which crucially depends on the extrapolation of general relativity in this regime. The
best candidate for such observations would be the supermassive black hole at Sgr A* in the
center of our milky way due to its great mass and close proximity.[a2]

4 
  
i
"



Further information: Hawking radiation and Black hole thermodynamics

If ultra-high-energy collisions of particles in a particle accelerator can create microscopic black

holes, it is expected that all types of particles will be emitted by black hole evaporation,
providing key evidence for any grand unified theory. Above are the high energy particles
produced in a gold ion collision on the RHIC.
In 19a1, Stephen Hawking showed that the total area of the event horizons of any collection of
classical black holes can never decrease, even if they collide and swallow each other; that is
merge.[a3] This is remarkably similar to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, with area playing
the role of entropy. As a classical object with zero temperature it was assumed that black holes
had zero entropy. If this were the case, the second law of thermodynamics would be violated by
entropy-laden matter entering the black hole, resulting in a decrease of the total entropy of the
universe. Therefore, Jacob Bekenstein proposed that a black hole should have an entropy, and
that it should be proportional to its horizon area. Since black holes do not classically emit
radiation, the thermodynamic viewpoint seemed simply an analogy, since zero temperature
implies infinite changes in entropy with any addition of heat, which implies infinite entropy.
However, in 19a4, Hawking applied quantum field theory to the curved spacetime around the
event horizon and discovered that black holes emit Hawking radiation, a form of thermal
radiation, allied to the Unruh effect, which implied they had a positive temperature. This
strengthened the analogy being drawn between black hole dynamics and thermodynamics: using
the first law of black hole mechanics, it follows that the entropy of a non-rotating black hole is
one quarter of the area of the horizon. This is a universal result and can be extended to apply to
cosmological horizons such as in de Sitter space. It was later suggested that black holes are
maximum-entropy objects, meaning that the maximum possible entropy of a region of space is
the entropy of the largest black hole that can fit into it. This led to the holographic principle.

The Hawking radiation reflects a characteristic temperature of the black hole, which can be
calculated from its entropy. The more its temperature falls, the more massive a black hole
becomes: the more energy a black hole absorbs, the colder it gets. A black hole with roughly the
mass of the planet Mercury would have a temperature in equilibrium with the cosmic microwave
background radiation (about 2.a3 K). More massive than this, a black hole will be colder than the
background radiation, and it will gain energy from the background faster than it gives energy up
through Hawking radiation, becoming even colder still. However, for a less massive black hole
the effect implies that the mass of the black hole will slowly evaporate with time, with the black
hole becoming hotter and hotter as it does so. Although these effects are negligible for black
holes massive enough to have been formed astronomically, they would rapidly become
significant for hypothetical smaller black holes, where quantum-mechanical effects dominate.
Indeed, small black holes are predicted to undergo runaway evaporation and eventually vanish in
a burst of radiation.

Although general relativity can be used to perform a semi-classical calculation of black hole
entropy, this situation is theoretically unsatisfying. In statistical mechanics, entropy is understood
as counting the number of microscopic configurations of a system which have the same
macroscopic qualities (such as mass, charge, pressure, etc.). But without a satisfactory theory of
quantum gravity, one cannot perform such a computation for black holes. Some promise has
been shown by string theory, however, which posits that the microscopic degrees of freedom of
the black hole are D-branes. By counting the states of D-branes with given charges and energy,
the entropy for certain supersymmetric black holes has been reproduced. Extending the region of
validity of these calculations is an ongoing area of research.

j
 


Main article: Black hole information paradox

An open question in fundamental physics is the so-called information loss paradox, or black hole
unitarity paradox. Classically, the laws of physics are the same run forward or in reverse (T-
symmetry). Liouville's Theorem dictates conservation of phase space volume, which can be
thought of as 'conservation of information', so there is some problem even in classical (non-
quantum general relativity) physics. In quantum mechanics, this corresponds to a vital property
called unitarity, which has to do with the conservation of probability (It can also be thought of as
a conservation of quantum phase space volume as expressed by the density matrix).[a4]

$$


Main article: Fuzzball (string theory)

Fuzzballs are theorized by some superstring theory scientists to be the true quantum description
of black holes. The theory resolves the information paradox by eliminating the need for a
singularity at the heart of the black hole with infinite spacetime curvature due to an infinitely
intense gravitational field from a region of zero volume. Modern physics breaks down when such
parameters are infinite and zero.

Samir Mathur of Ohio State University, with postdoctoral researcher Oleg Lunin, proposed via
two papers in 2002 that black holes are actually spheres of strings with a definite volume; they
are not a singularity, which the classic view holds to be a zero-dimensional, zero-volume point
into which a black hole¶s entire mass is concentrated.[a5]

String theory holds that the fundamental constituents of subatomic particles, including the force
carriers (e.g., quarks leptons, photons, and gluons), all comprise a one-dimensional string of
energy that takes on its identity by vibrating in different modes and/or frequencies. Quite unlike
the view of a black hole as a singularity, a small fuzzball can be thought of as an extra-dense
neutron star where its neutrons have decomposed, or ³melted,´ liberating the quarks (strings in
string theory) comprising them. Accordingly, fuzzballs can be regarded as the most extreme
form of degenerate matter.



ÔÊ Black string ÔÊ Schwarzschild metric
ÔÊ Fuzzball (string theory) ÔÊ Spacetime
ÔÊ Gravitational singularity ÔÊ Supermassive black hole
ÔÊ Kugelblitz (astrophysics) ÔÊ Susskind-Hawking battle
ÔÊ List of black holes ÔÊ Timeline of black hole physics
ÔÊ Neutron star ÔÊ White hole
ÔÊ Wormhole

( 
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(2009). "Monitoring Stellar Orbits Around the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic
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4 , SD Mathur and
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(2002) (arxiv); and correspondence between
Dr. Mathur and Wikipedia, as documented on this article¶s talk page.

   
"

 
 
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doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.a2.084013. arȋiv:hep-th/050a1a1v2. Stephen Hawking's
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& 
 
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ÔÊ "$:
‘Ê "The Galactic Odd Couple: giant black holes and stellar baby booms," July 2003;
‘Ê "Quantum Black Holes," May 2005.
ÔÊ "Black hole" on Scholarpedia.
ÔÊ "Black Hole confirmed in Milky Way." Retrieved December 10, 2008
ÔÊ Yale University Video Lecture: Introduction to Black Holes at Google Video.
ÔÊ Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull - Award-winning interactive multimedia Web site
about the physics and astronomy of black holes from the Space Telescope Science
Institute
ÔÊ FAQ on black holes
 ÔÊ "Schwarzschild Geometry" on Andrew Hamilton¶s website
ÔÊ Tufts University: Student Project (Great Kid's Section)
ÔÊ Movie of Black Hole Candidate from Max Planck Institute
ÔÊ UT Brownsville Group Simulates Spinning Black-Hole Binaries
ÔÊ Black Hole Research News on ScienceDaily
ÔÊ SPACE.com All About Black Holes - News, Features and Interesting Original Videos
ÔÊ Black Holes Intro - Introduction to Black Holes
ÔÊ Advanced Mathematics of Black Hole Evaporation
ÔÊ HowStuffWorks: How Black Holes Work - Easy to consume guide to Black Holes
ÔÊ Ted Bunn's Black Holes FAQ explains in simple language some other consequences of
the way in which black holes bend space-time.
ÔÊ Is the Mass of Black Holes Limited? - The Future of Things article
ÔÊ Rethinking Black Holes - The Vachaspati/Stojkovic/Krauss case against Black Holes
ÔÊ Black Holes 'Do Not Exist' - The Chapline case against the existence of Black Holes


v‡d‡e
j
 
Types Schwarzschild' Rotating' Charged' Virtual
Micro' Extremal (Electron) ' Stellar' Intermediate-mass'
Size
Supermassive' Quasar (Active galactic nucleus)
Stellar evolution' Collapse' Compact star (Neutron' Exotic' Quark'
Formation Preon' Q)' Tolman±Oppenheimer±Volkoff limit' White dwarf'
Supernova' Hypernova
Thermodynamics' Schwarzschild radius' M-sigma relation' Event
horizon' Quasi-periodic oscillations' Photon sphere' Ergosphere'
Properties
Hawking radiation' Penrose process' Bondi accretion'
Spaghettification' Gravitational lens
Gravitational singularity (Penrose±Hawking singularity theorems) '
Primordial black hole' Gravastar' Dark star' Dark energy star' Black
Models star' Magnetospheric eternally collapsing object' Fuzzball' White
hole' Naked singularity' Ring singularity' Immirzi parameter'
Membrane paradigm' Kugelblitz' Wormhole
No hair theorem' Information paradox' Cosmic censorship' Alternative
Issues
models' Holographic principle (Susskind-Hawking battle)
Metrics Schwarzschild' Kerr' Reissner±Nordström' Kerr±Newman
Discovery Timeline of black hole physics' Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
"  List
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole"
Categories: Black holes | Dark matter | Relativity
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articles needing page number citations | Wikipedia semi-protected pages | All articles with
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