PHY390, The Kerr Metric and Black Holes James Lattimer Department of Physics & Astronomy 449 ESS Bldg. Stony Brook University April 1, 2021 Black Holes, Neutron Stars and Gravitational Radiation
[email protected] James Lattimer PHY390, The Kerr Metric and Black Holes What Exactly is a Black Hole? Standard definition: A region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape. I Where does the escape velocity equal the speed of light? r 2GMBH vesc = = c RSch This defines the Schwarzschild radius RSch to be 2GMBH M RSch = 2 ' 3 km c M I The event horizon marks the point of no return for any object. I A black hole is black because it absorbs everything incident on the event horizon and reflects nothing. I Black holes are hypothesized to form in three ways: I Gravitational collapse of a star I A high energy collision I Density fluctuations in the early universe I In general relativity, the black hole's mass is concentrated at the center in a singularity of infinite density. James Lattimer PHY390, The Kerr Metric and Black Holes John Michell and Black Holes The first reference is by the Anglican priest, John Michell (1724-1793), in a letter written to Henry Cavendish, of the Royal Society, in 1783. He reasoned, from observations of radiation pressure, that light, like mass, has inertia. If gravity affects light like its mass equivalent, light would be weakened. He argued that a Sun with 500 times its radius and the same density would be so massive that it's escape velocity would exceed light speed.