Related papers: Strange Pathways for Black Hole Formation
Creation of strange quark stars through strong interaction deconfinement is studied based on modern estimates of hyperon formation in neutron stars. The hyperon abundance is shown to be large enough so that if strange quark matter (SQM) is…
Recent James Webb Space Telescope observations have unveiled that the first supermassive black holes (SMBHs) were in place at z $\geq$ 10, a few hundred Myrs after the Big Bang. These discoveries are providing strong constraints on the…
The implications of the formation of strange quark matter in neutron stars and in core-collapse supernovae is discussed with special emphasis on the possibility of having a strong first order QCD phase transition at high baryon densities.…
The collapse of massive stars is one of the most-studied paths to black hole formation. In this chapter, we review black hole formation during the collapse of massive stars in the broader context of single and binary stellar evolution and…
The accretion of ~ 0.1 -- 1 M_o of material by a neutron star through Roche lobe overflow of its companion or through white-dwarf/neutron-star coalescence in a low mass binary system could be enough to exceed the critical mass of a neutron…
We propose a mechanism that can convert a sizeable fraction of neutron stars into black holes with mass $\sim 1M_\odot$, too light to be produced via standard stellar evolution. We show that asymmetric fermionic dark matter of mass $\sim$…
Astrophysicists distinguish between three different types of compact stars. These are white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. The former contain matter in one of the densest forms found in the Universe. This feature, together with the…
Recent gravitational wave observations include possible detections of black hole - neutron star binary mergers. As with binary black hole mergers, numerical simulations help characterize the sources. For binary systems with neutron star…
In this article we consider the formation and evolution of black holes, especially those in binary stars where radiation from the matter falling on them can be seen. We consider a number of effects introduced by some of us, which are not…
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays create black holes in scenarios with extra dimensions and TeV-scale gravity. In particular, cosmic neutrinos will produce black holes deep in the atmosphere, initiating quasi-horizontal showers far above the…
The mass function for black holes and neutron stars at birth is explored for mass-losing helium stars. These should resemble, more closely than similar studies of single hydrogen-rich stars, the results of evolution in close binary systems.…
Primordial micro black holes can constitute dark matter if short-distance gravity is modified by extra dimensions or a large number of species and if the memory-burden effect sufficiently suppresses Hawking evaporation. The resulting black…
The formation rate of quark matter droplets in neutron stars is calculated from a combination of bubble formation rates in cold degenerate and high temperature matter. Nuclear matter calculations of the viscosity and thermal conductivity…
The collapse of baryons into extremely massive stars with masses exceeding 10^4 M_Sun in a small fraction of protogalaxies at z > 10 is a promising candidate for the origin of supermassive black holes, some of which grow to a billion solar…
Mass distribution of black holes in low-mass X-ray binaries previously suggested the existence of a $ \sim 2-5M_{\odot} $ mass gap between the most massive neutron stars and the least massive black holes, while some recent evidence appears…
A diverse range of phenomena is possible when a black hole experiences very rapid accretion from a disk due to the incomplete explosion of a massive presupernova star endowed with rotation. In the most extreme case, the outgoing shock fails…
We develop a model for the outer gravitationally unstable regions of accretion disks around massive black holes, for primeval or solar abundances. First we study star formation and evolution in a purely gaseous marginally unstable disk, and…
Neutron stars are some of the densest manifestations of massive objects in the universe. They are ideal astrophysical laboratories for testing theories of dense matter physics and provide connections among nuclear physics, particle physics…
The possibility of making stellar mass black holes in supernovae that otherwise produce viable Type II and Ib supernova explosions is discussed and estimates given of their number in the Milky Way Galaxy. Observational diagnostics of…
Very massive stars are radiation pressure dominated. Before running out of viable nuclear fuel, they can reach a thermodynamic state where electron-positron pair-production robs them of radiation support, triggering their collapse.…