Related papers: The hole picture
The gravitational wave detectors have unveiled a population of massive black holes that do not resemble those observed in the Milky Way and whose origin is debated. According to one possible explanation, these black holes may have formed…
Lorentz-symmetry and the notion of light cones play a central role in the definition of horizons and the existence of black holes. Current observations provide strong indications that astrophysical black holes do exist in Nature. Here we…
A distinct visual signature occurs in black holes that are surrounded by optically thin and geometrically thick emission regions. This signature is a sharp-edged dip in brightness that is coincident with the black-hole shadow, which is the…
From any location outside the event horizon of a black hole there are an infinite number of trajectories for light to an observer. Each of these paths differ in the number of orbits revolved around the black hole and in their proximity to…
It is shown that there are large static black holes for which all curvature invariants are small near the event horizon, yet any object which falls in experiences enormous tidal forces outside the horizon. These black holes are charged and…
This review discusses the current status of supermassive black hole research, as seen from a purely observational standpoint. Since the early '90s, rapid technological advances, most notably the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the…
The emergence of the first black holes during the first billion years of cosmic history marks a key event in cosmology. Their formation is part of the overall process of ending the cosmic dark ages, when the first stars appeared in low-mass…
A possible process to destroy a black hole consists on throwing point particles with sufficiently large angular momentum into the black hole. In the case of Kerr black holes, it was shown by Wald that particles with dangerously large…
The Hawking-Penrose singularity theorem states that a singularity forms inside a black hole in general relativity. To remove this singularity one must resort to a more fundamental theory. Using a corrected dynamical equation arising in loop…
The shadow of a black hole is usually calculated, either analytically or numerically, on the assumption that the black hole is eternal, i.e., that it existed for all time. Here we ask the question of how this shadow comes about in the…
In the coming decade, gravitational waves will convert the study of general relativistic aspects of black holes and stars from a largely theoretical enterprise to a highly interactive, observational/theoretical one. For example,…
Black holes are extreme spacetime deformations where even light is imprisoned. There is an extensive astrophysical evidence for the real and abundant existence of these prisons of matter and light in the Universe. Mathematically, black…
Astronomical observations are about to deliver the very first telescopic image of the massive black hole lurking at the Galactic Center. The mass of data collected in one night by the Event Horizon Telescope network, exceeding everything…
The existence of extremely dark and compact astronomical bodies is by now a well established observational fact. On the other hand, classical General Relativity predicts the existence of black holes which fit very well with the…
We argue that the following three statements cannot all be true: (i) Hawking radiation is in a pure state, (ii) the information carried by the radiation is emitted from the region near the horizon, with low energy effective field theory…
We review some recent results obtained for black holes using effective field theory methods applied to quantum gravity, in particular the unique effective action. Black holes are complex thermodynamical objects that not only have a…
We discuss some of the drawbacks of using event horizons to define black holes and suggest ways in which black holes can be described without event horizons, using trapping horizons. We show that these trapping horizons give rise to…
Black holes have the peculiar and intriguing property of having an event horizon, a one-way membrane causally separating their internal region from the rest of the Universe. Today astrophysical observations provide some evidence for the…
The theoretical properties of the black holes (BHs) and of the universe were derived from a unified relativistic theory based on a generalization of local relativity for nonlocal cases in gravitational fields and a quantized standing wave…
In light of recent evidence suggesting a nonzero present-day cosmological constant, Adams, Mbonye, & Laughlin (1999) have considered the evolution of black holes in the presence of vacuum energy. Using the assumption that Lambda remains…