Lecture 27:

Black Holes
 Stellar Corpses:
 white dwarfs
 collapsed cores of low-mass stars
 supported by electron degeneracy

 white dwarf limit 1.4 Msun

 neutron stars
 collapsed cores of high-mass stars
 supported by neutron degeneracy

 neutron star limit about 3 Msun

 black holes
 collapse to a singularity
 General Relativity

 the equivalence principle:

gravity and acceleration are equivalent –
i.e., one cannot discriminate between
being at rest in a gravitational field and
being accelerated in the absence of
gravity
gravity = acceleration
 General Relativity

 mass causes space-time to curve:

Imagine space-time as a four-
dimensional rubber sheet. Any object
with mass causes this sheet to become
deformed.
 General Relativity

 the curvature of space-time tells

matter how to move:
What we perceive as gravity arises from
the curvature of space-time. Masses
follow the ‘straightest possible paths’
possible given the curvature.
 Strange consequences of the
Equivalence Principle:
 gravitational time dilation:
time runs slower near a
massive object
 flashes take a longer
time to reach

flashes take a
shorter time to
reach
 Strange consequences of the
Equivalence Principle:
 gravitational time dilation:
time runs slower near a
massive object
 gravitational redshifting:
light escaping from a massive
object is shifted towards lower
frequencies/longer wavelengths
Strange but true: observations
confirming the predictions of
general relativity
 gravitational lensing (bending of light by
gravity) confirmed during a solar eclipse
in 1919
Strange but true: observations
confirming the predictions of
general relativity
 gravitational lensing (bending of light by
gravity) confirmed during a solar eclipse
in 1919
 precession of the perihelion of Mercury:
general relativity predicts a correction
to Newton’s Law, which fits the
observations
574 arcsec per century

Newtonian theory
predicted 531 arcsec
per century
 Strange but true: observations
confirming the predictions of
general relativity
 gravitational lensing (bending of light by
gravity) confirmed during a solar eclipse
in 1919
 precession of the perihelion of Mercury:
general relativity predicts a correction
to Newton’s Law, which fits the
observations
 gravitational redshifting: spectral lines
from white dwarfs are shifted; direct
confirmation in 1960
 Black Holes
 general relativity predicts that there
can be singularities in space-time,
places where the density of matter
becomes infinite
 ‘black holes’ are the name for one
kind of ‘singular solution’ in the
equations.
Formation of a Black Hole
The paths of photons
in curved space-time
Escape velocity from a black hole
 remember (from Chapter 5) the
escape velocity is given by
vesc = [2GM/R]1/2
 what if the escape velocity was equal
to the speed of light?
 this would set a maximum radius for
which light could escape from an
object with a given mass
 The Schwarzschild radius

v2esc = [2GM/R] = c2

 RS = 2GM/c2

or RS = [3.0 x M/Msun] km
 The Schwarzschild radius

 the larger the mass of a black

hole, the larger the Schwarzschild
radius
 once light or any object has
crossed the Schwarzschild radius
(or event horizon), it can never
escape the force of gravity of the
black hole.
 Black holes have no hair
 all information about the material
that is inside the event horizon of a
black hole is lost, except
 mass
 charge

 angular momentum
 Black hole Entropy Theorem
 The total amount of information
(entropy) in the Universe cannot
decrease (second law of
thermodynamics)
 this is what lead Bekenstein and
Hawking to the idea that Black holes
must radiate
 Falling into a black hole
 stretched by tidal forces
 time slows down
 radiation is redshifted
 Observational Evidence

 there is evidence that black holes

formed from collapsed stars exist in
some X-ray binaries
 most promising candidate:
 Cygnus X-1: 18 Msun star orbiting an
unseen companion with a mass of 10
Msun
 too massive to be a neutron star and
too small to be an ordinary star
Cygnus X-1
 Supermassive Black Holes
 there is very good evidence from the
motions of stars and gas near the
centers of galaxies that most galaxies
(including our own) contain
‘supermassive black holes’ – black
holes weighing millions to billions of
solar masses
 how these objects formed is still
something of a mystery…
M87
White holes, Wormholes, and
tunnels through hyperspace
 black holes are only one of the
several kinds of singularities in the
equations of general relativity
 white holes are sort of like the
opposite of black holes
 a wormhole is a black hole
connecting to a white hole
Einstein-Rosen bridge
Wormhole
the end