Related papers: Can black holes be formed by focussing radiation?
We elucidate how black holes form in trans-Planckian collisions. In the rest frame of one of the incident particles, the gravitational field of the other, which is rapidly moving, looks like a gravitational shock wave. The shock wave…
I revisit a known solution of the Einstein field equations to show that it describes the formation of non-spherical black holes by the collapse of pure electromagnetic monochromatic radiation. Both positive and negative masses are feasible…
It is shown that there exists a range of parameters in which gravitational collapse with a spherically symmetric massive scalar field can be treated as if it were collapsing dust. This implies a criterion for the formation of black holes…
Black holes are popping up all over the place: in compact binary X-ray sources and GRBs, in quasars, AGNs and the cores of all bulge galaxies, in binary black holes and binary black hole-neutron stars, and maybe even in the LHC! Black holes…
We develop the general formalism for joining, splitting and interconnection of closed and open strings. As an application, we study examples of fundamental cosmic string collisions leading to gravitational collapse. We find that the…
Some indication of conditions that are necessary for the formation of black holes from the collision of bubbles during a supercooled phase transition in the the early universe are explored. Two colliding bubbles can never form a black hole.…
Rapid infall of gas in the nuclei of galaxies could lead to the formation of black holes by direct collapse, without first forming stars. Black holes formed in this way would have initial masses of a few solar masses, but would be embedded…
Binary black holes as the recently detected sources of gravitational waves can be formed from massive stellar binaries in the field or by dynamical interactions in clusters of high stellar density, if the black holes are the remnants of…
It is believed that stellar black holes (BHs) can be formed in two different ways: Either a massive star collapses directly into a BH without a supernova (SN) explosion, or an explosion occurs in a proto-neutron star, but the energy is too…
Alvarez-Dominguez, Garay, Martin-Martinez, and Polo-Gomez have suggested that ``it is not possible to concentrate enough light to precipitate the formation of an event horizon. We argue that the dissipative quantum effects coming from the…
The two main processes of black hole formation are: one, collapse of a matter cloud under its own gravity and the other is accretion of matter onto an already existing gravitating centre. The necessary condition for both the processes to…
Primordial black holes can be produced by a long range attractive fifth force stronger than gravity, mediated by a light scalar field interacting with nonrelativistic "heavy" particles. As soon as the energy fraction of heavy particles…
Given the great interest that black holes arouse among non-specialists, it is important to analyse misconceptions related to them. According to the author, the most common misconceptions are that: (1) black holes are formed from stellar…
There is compelling evidence that supermassive black holes exist. Yet the origin of these objects, or their seeds, is still unknown. We discuss several plausible scenarios for forming the seeds of supermassive black holes. These include the…
We suggest that high-mass black holes; i.e., black holes of several solar masses, can be formed in binaries with low-mass main-sequence companions, provided that the hydrogen envelope of the massive star is removed in common envelope…
A black hole is the end state of the gravitational collapse of massive stars. However, a typical black hole contains a singularity and to avoid singularity formation we have to violate a strong energy condition that states that gravity must…
We review the main physical processes that lead to the formation of stellar binary black holes (BBHs) and to their merger. BBHs can form from the isolated evolution of massive binary stars. The physics of core-collapse supernovae and the…
Black holes can be produced in collapse of small-scale dark matter structures, which can happen at any time from the early to present-day universe. Microstructure black holes (MSBHs) can have a wide range of masses. Small MSBHs evaporate…
We show that heavy primordial black holes may originate from much lighter ones if the latter are strongly clustered at the time of their formation. While this population is subject to the usual constraints from late-time universe…
Arguments for black hole formation in collisions of high-energy particles have rested on the emergence of a closed trapped surface in the classical geometry of two colliding Aichelburg-Sexl solutions. Recent analysis has, however, shown…