Related papers: Compact objects and Black Holes: Nobel Prize for P…
This Letter is written to clear up a situation, and hopefully we will learn something from it: scientifically and morally. Herein is presented a true ``historical'' scenario of events, that led to my being the first person (Williams 1991)…
I present an elementary primer of black hole physics, including its general relativity basis, all peppered with astrophysical illustrations. Following a brief review of the process stellar collapse to a black hole, I discuss the…
Ten short years ago, we had the rare privilege of witnessing the onset of a renaissance in science: humanity finally succeeded in its arduous quest to directly detect gravitational waves. This breakthrough did not occur in a vacuum: it was…
A massive compact object is that which forms when a sufficiently massive star collapses. This is commonly taken to be a black hole with a singularity surrounded by a horizon and which evolves by emitting Hawking radiation. In a quantum…
Supplementing earlier literature by e.g. Tipler, Clarke, & Ellis (1980), Israel (1987), Thorne, (1994), Earman (1999), Senovilla & Garfinkle (2015), Curiel (2019ab), and Landsman (2021ab), I provide a historical and conceptual analysis of…
We present a new solution in Einstein's General Relativity representing a Schwarzschild black hole immersed in a rotating universe. Such a solution is constructed analytically by means of the last unexplored Lie point symmetry of the Ernst…
The discovery in the early 1970s that black holes radiate as black bodies has radically affected our understanding of general relativity, and offered us some early hints about the nature of quantum gravity. In this chapter I will review the…
The singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose tell us that singularities are common place in general relativity. Singularities not only occur at the beginning of the Universe at the Big Bang, but also in complete gravitational collapses…
This white paper highlights compact object and fundamental physics science opportunities afforded by high-throughput broadband (0.1-60 keV) X-ray polarization observations. X-ray polarimetry gives new observables with geometric information…
A localised particle in Quantum Mechanics is described by a wave packet in position space, regardless of its energy. However, from the point of view of General Relativity, if the particle's energy density exceeds a certain threshold, it…
About thirty years ago, Bekenstein and Hawking introduced three basic concepts relating to black hole, namely, the "area entropy", "gravitation temperature" and "thermal radiation". The author analyzes these concepts systematically and…
The past four years have seen a scientific revolution through the birth of a new field: gravitational-wave astronomy. The first detection of gravitational waves---recognised by the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics---provided unprecedented tests…
Two of the major achievements of Stephen Hawking are described in elementary terms. They are his work on the beginning of the universe and his work on the end of black holes. These are perhaps the scientific achievements for which he is…
A gravitational theory is formulated by considering the physical processes underlying relativistic dilation of time and contraction of space. It is shown that the point mass solution of general relativity's field equation - the…
Classical black holes are solutions of the field equations of General Relativity. Many astronomical observations suggest that black holes really exist in nature. However, an unambiguous proof for their existence is still lacking. Neither…
Black holes play a pivotal role in the foundations of physics, but there is an alarming discrepancy between what is considered to be a black hole in observational astronomy and theoretical studies. Despite claims to the contrary, we argue…
The last particle that completes the Standard Model of Elementary Particles, the most sophisticated theory of nature in human history, was discovered in 2012. Although the present formulation of the theory comes from the 1960s and 70s, it…
Black and white holes play remarkably contrasting roles in general relativity versus observational astrophysics. While there is overwhelming observational evidence for the existence of compact objects that are "cold, dark, and heavy", which…
Black holes, first found as solutions of Einstein's General Relativity, are important in astrophysics, since they result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star or a cluster of stars, and in physics since they reveal properties of…
Combining a variety of results in string theory and general relativity, a picture of the black hole interior is developed wherein spacetime caps off at an inner horizon, and the inter-horizon region is occupied by a Hagedorn gas of a very…