Related papers: Black Holes: from Galactic Nuclei to Elementary Pa…
This chapter gives an overview of the quantum aspects of black holes, focusing on the black hole information problem, the counting of black hole entropy in string theory, and the emergence of spacetime in holography. It is aimed at a broad…
This is a review of current black-hole theory, concentrating on local, dynamical aspects.
This chapter provides a general overview of the theory and observations of black holes in the Universe and on their interpretation. We briefly review the black hole classes, accretion disk models, spectral state classification, the AGN…
It has long been suspected that Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by accretion of matter onto massive black holes and this belief implies their presence in the nuclei of most nearby galaxies as "relics" of past activity. Just a few years…
Everybody knows what the classical black holes are. In short, this is a spacetime region beyond the so-called event horizon. The notion of the event horizon is mathematically well defined. The situation with a definition of quantum black…
Black holes are by definition black, and therefore cannot be directly observed by using electromagnetic radiations. Convincing identification of black holes must necessarily depend on the identification of a very specially behaving matter…
It has recently been suggested that black holes may be described as condensates of weakly interacting gravitons at a critical point, exhibiting strong quantum effects. In this paper, we study a model system of attractive bosons in one…
A simple model of a universe is presented composed of black holes and black branes. It uses the most simplest approximations and models of General Relativity and Quantum Dynamics to offer an idea of an unification and gives a possible…
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…
Black Holes are possibly the most enigmatic objects in our Universe. From their detection in gravitational waves upon their mergers, to their snapshot eating at the centres of galaxies, black hole astrophysics has undergone an observational…
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…
It is argued that the qualitative features of black holes, regarded as quantum mechanical objects, depend both on the parameters of the hole and on the microscopic theory in which it is embedded. A thermal description is inadequate for…
Masses of black holes in nearby galactic nuclei can be measured in a variety of ways, using stellar and gaseous kinematics. Reliable black hole masses are known for several dozen objects, so that demographic questions can start to be…
I survey the physics of black holes in two and three spacetime dimensions, with special attention given to an understanding of their exterior and interior properties.
With the direct discovery of gravitational waves, black holes have regain interest in the recent years. In particular primordial black holes (PBHs), which originate from the very early Universe, may constitute (at least in part) dark…
Non-perturbative quantum general relativity provides a possible framework to analyze issues related to black hole thermodynamics from a fundamental perspective. A pedagogical account of the recent developments in this area is given. The…
There appears to be a duality between elementary particles, which span the mass range below the Planck scale, and black holes, which span the mass range range above it. In particular, the Black Hole Uncertainty Principle Correspondence…
Since a black hole does not emit light from its interior, nor does it have a surface on which light from nearby sources can be reflected, observational study of black hole physics requires observing the gravitational impact of the black…
The dynamical evidence for black holes (BHs) in galactic nuclei is reviewed, with emphasis on recent improvements in spatial resolution, methods for analyzing galaxy spectra and dynamical modeling. M31, M32 and M87 are discussed in some…
This paper reviews the X-ray, optical, radio and IR observations of galactic X-ray binaries suspected to contain black hole compact objects, with particular emphasis on the supporting dynamical evidence.