Related papers: Black-Hole Phenomenology
After a brief historical introduction, we summarize current efforts and accomplishments in the study of supermassive black holes.
Black holes are the simplest macroscopic objects, and provide unique tests of General Relativity. They have been compared to the Hydrogen atom in quantum mechanics. Here, we establish a few facts about the simplest systems bound by gravity:…
The defining characteristic of a black hole is that it possesses an event horizon through which matter and energy can fall in but from which nothing escapes. Soft X-ray transients (SXTs), a class of X-ray binaries, appear to confirm this…
This contribution summarizes, as of early 2008, the observational and theoretical understanding of the origin, physics, and emission properties of short gamma-ray bursts in both electromagnetic and gravitational waves.
These lecture notes introduce the reader to the hot big bang model, cosmological perturbations, gravitational waves, the cosmic microwave background, inflation, the singularity problem, the cosmological constant problem and the cosmology of…
Black holes are thought to describe the geometry of massive, dark compact objects in the universe. To further support and quantify this long-held belief requires knowledge of possible, if exotic alternatives. Here, we wish to understand how…
The state of the searches for isolated black holes, non-accreting black holes in binary systems and, finally, the accreting black holes in the X-ray binaries is presented. The third category is, by far, the most important source of…
In this chapter we first describe the early history of primordial black hole (PBH) research. We then discuss their possible formation mechanisms, including critical collapse from inflationary fluctuations and various types of phase…
In this chapter I will review the status of our phenomenological understanding of the relation between accretion and outflows in accreting black hole systems. This understanding arises primarily from observing the relation between X-ray and…
1. Overview of neutrino astronomy: multidisciplinary science. 2. Cosmic accelerators: the highest energy cosmic rays. 3. Neutrino beam dumps: supermassive black holes and gamma ray bursts. 4. Neutrino telescopes: water and ice. 5. Indirect…
We review the recent noticeable progresses in black hole physics focusing on the up-coming super-collider, the LHC. We discuss the classical formation of black holes by particle collision, the greybody factors for higher dimensional…
The distortion of the spacetime structure in the surroundings of black holes affects the trajectories of light rays. As a consequence, black holes can act as gravitational lenses. Observations of type Ia supernovas, show that our Universe…
This article discusses stellar dynamical evidence for supermassive black holes in inactive and weakly active galaxies.
Hard X-ray emission is ubiquitous in accreting black holes, both in Galactic binary systems and in Active Galactic Nuclei. I review the different spectra which can be seen from these systems, and possible ways of producing this emission.…
Generalizations of the Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes are discussed in an astrophysically viable generalized theory of gravity, which includes higher curvature corrections in the form of the Gauss-Bonnet term, coupled to a dilaton. The…
Because of the very definition of black holes --- no light escapes them and falling objects get infinitely faint when approaching --- it is impossible to ever prove that they exist. However, electromagnetic and gravitational-wave…
Extremal black holes are studied in a two dimensional model motivated by a dimensional reduction from four dimensions. Their quantum corrected geometry is calculated semiclassically and a mild singularity is shown to appear at the horizon.…
We discuss a cornucopia of potential astrophysical signatures and constraints on magnetically charged black holes of various masses. As recently highlighted, being potentially viable astrophysical candidates with immense electromagnetic…
We summarize the state of the art of the ``close approximation'' to black hole collisions. We discuss results to first and second order in perturbation theory for head-on collisions of momentarily-stationary and non-stationary black holes…
We give an elementary introduction to black holes in supergravity and string theory. The focus is on BPS solutions in four- and higher-dimensional supergravity and string theory. Basic ideas and techniques are explained in detail, including…