Related papers: Do Black Holes Exist?
Recent work revealed the existence of a galaxy "millimetre fundamental plane of black hole accretion", a tight correlation between nuclear $1$mm luminosity, intrinsic $2$ - $10$keV X-ray luminosity and supermassive black hole mass,…
We use recent results in binary stellar evolution to argue that binaries with at least one black hole dominate the rate of compact-object mergers. Two phenomena generally attributable to such mergers, gamma-ray bursts and gravity-wave…
Black holes in General Relativity are very simple objects. This property, that goes under the name of "no-hair," has been refined in the last few decades and admits several versions. The simplicity of black holes makes them ideal testbeds…
The origin of supermassive black holes in the galactic nuclei is quite uncertain in spite of extensive set of observational data. We review the known scenarios of galactic and cosmological formation of supermassive black holes. The common…
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…
There have been proposals that primordial black hole remnants (BHRs) are the dark matter, but the idea is somewhat vague. We argue here first that the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) may prevent black holes from evaporating…
We study the formation of low-mass X-ray binaries with a black hole as accreting object. The performed semi-analytic analysis reveals that the formation rate of black holes in low-mass X-ray binaries is about two orders of magnitude smaller…
Analyzing exact solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell equations in the Kerr-Schild formalism we show that black hole horizon is instable with respect to electromagnetic excitations. Contrary to perturbative smooth harmonic solutions, the exact…
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 has been justifiably questioned that if the Black Hole Candidates (BHCs) have a ``hard surface'' why Type I X-ray bursts are not seen from them (Nayayan, R., Black Holes in Astrophysics, New J. Phys., 7, 199-218, 2005). It is pointed out…
Classically, black holes are compact objects with perfect semi-permeable horizons: Anything may enter, nothing may leave. We consider an axiomatic approach that applies to any black hole type, including arbitrarily near-extremal black…
We present a broad review on black holes. We analyse some of the fundamental concepts in black hole theory, the observational and theoretical status of stellar and galactic black holes, and their appearance as quantum objects.
The existence of supermassive collapsed objects in the cores of most galaxies poses still-unanswered questions. First, how did they form, and how does their mass depend on the properties of the host galaxy? Second, can observations probe…
If a black hole has a low spin value, it must double its mass to reach a high spin parameter. Although this is easily accomplished through mergers or accretion in the case of supermassive black holes in galactic centers, it is impossible…
We review the properties and behavior X-ray binaries that contain an accreting black hole. The larger majority of such systems are X-ray transients, and many of them were observed in daily pointings with RXTE throughout the course of their…
Black holes harbor a spacetime singularity of infinite curvature, where classical spacetime physics breaks down, and current theory cannot predict what will happen. However, the singularity is invisible from the outside because strong…
The existence of black holes remains open to doubt until other conceivable options are excluded. With this motivation, we consider a model of a compact star in which most of the mass consists of dark particles of some kind, and a small…
Recent X-ray timing and spectral observations of black hole binaries in outburst have redefined methods for investigating the properties of Galactic black holes and the physics of accretion flows. High-frequency X-ray QPOs in 5 systems…
Black holes are often characterized by event horizons, following the literature that laid the mathematical foundations of the subject in the 1970s. However black hole event horizons have two fundamental conceptual limitations. First, they…
A possible process to destroy a black hole consists on throwing point particles with sufficiently large angular momentum into the black hole. In the case of Kerr black holes, it was shown by Wald that particles with dangerously large…