Black Holes An Introduction

The 20
th
century came in with many new, extraordinary scientific breakthroughs like
Einsteins general and special relativity, Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, the quantic view of
the Universe, first manned expedition in space, first computer and many others advances in
technology and science.
One of the most unusual discoveries from my point of view is the existence of the
supposed massive bodies that later received the name of black holes. The idea of a body so
massive that even light could not escape was first put forward by geologist John Michell in a
letter written to Henry Cavendish in 1783. However, this idea was accepted only after Einsteins
research in theory of relativity.
Altogether with the concept of black holes, many other concepts were introduced, like
the Schwarzschild radius, the Chandrasekhar limit, the event horizon, the naked singularity,
gravitational time dilation and gravitational redshift.
Considering the history of this idea (dating back in the 18
th
century), the term black
hole is of a rather recent origin, being adopted by the scientific society in 1967. The first
recorded use of the term is by journalist Ann Ewing in the article Black Holes in Space, dated
18 January 1964, and it was first publicly used by John Wheeler during a lecture in 1967.
The first steps in building the black hole theory were the consequences of Einsteins general
relativity, specifically the effect of gravity on light, experimentally proven in 1918, when during
a solar eclipse they were able to measure the bending angle of the light from a star when
passing near the sun.


We shall introduce now some of the concepts related to the theory of black holes and
Einsteins general relativity. The Chandrasekhar limit is the mass above which electron
degeneracy pressure in the star's core is insufficient to balance the star's own gravitational self-
attraction. Consequently, white dwarfs with masses greater than the limit undergo further
gravitational collapse, evolving into a different type of stellar remnant, such as a neutron star or
black hole. Those with masses under the limit remain stable as white dwarfs.
The Schwarzschild radius (sometimes historically referred to as the gravitational radius) is the
radius of a sphere such that, if all the mass of an object is compressed within that sphere, the
escape speed from the surface of the sphere would equal the speed of light.
The event horizon derives from general relativity's description of a black hole and is described
as the boundary within which the black hole's escape velocity is greater than the speed of light.
However, a more accurate description is that within this horizon, all paths in the forward light
cones of particles within the horizon, are warped so as to fall farther into the hole. Once a
particle is inside the horizon, moving into the hole is as inevitable as moving forward in time,
and can actually be thought of as equivalent to doing so, depending on the space-time
coordinate system used.
In general relativity, a naked singularity is a gravitational singularity without an event horizon,
therefore it can be easily observed from outside.
Gravitational time dilation is an actual difference of elapsed time between two events as
measured by observers differently situated from gravitational masses, in regions of different
gravitational potential.
Gravitational redshift or Einstein shift is the process by which electromagnetic radiation
originating from a source that is in gravitational field is reduced in frequency, or redshifted,
when observed in a region of a weaker gravitational field. This is a direct result of gravitational
time dilation - as one moves away from a source of gravitational field, the rate at which time
passes is increased relative to the case when one is near the source.
Considering the concepts presented above we can now imagine some of the effects of a
black hole situated in a stellar system. Accretion discs and bending of light are some of the
indirect evidence for their presence in stellar binary systems and the centers of globular
clusters, galaxies, and quasars.

Above is a computer generated image highlighting how strange things would look when looking
at a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The black hole has such strong gravity
that light is noticeably bent towards it - causing some very unusual visual distortions. Every star
in the normal frame has at least two bright images - one on each side of the black hole. Near
the black hole, you can see the whole sky - light from every direction is bent around and comes
back to you. Across the top, the Milky Way disk appears distorted into an arc.
Nowadays technology does not allow us to observe directly a black hole. However, there are
certain indirect methods of seeing black holes. For example, if gas from a nearby star were
sucked towards the black hole, the intense gravitation al energy would heat the gas to millions
of degrees. The resulting X-ray emissions could point to the presence of the black hole.
Or, if a massive black hole were surrounded by large amounts of orbiting material - gas, dust,
even stars - their rapid motion close to the hole could be observable via shifts in the energy of
the radiation they emit. Evidence along these lines is mounting, suggesting that black holes may
not be that rare in the universe.


Theorists usually model rapidly rotating black holes with the Kerr solution to Einstein's
General Theory of Relativity. These Kerr black holes rotate at a constant rate, their size and
shape depending only on their mass and rate of rotation. If the rotation is zero, the black hole is
perfectly round and the solution is identical to the Schwarzschild solution. If the rotation is non-
zero, the black hole bulges outward near its equator, and the faster it rotates, the more it
bulges. Perhaps one of the most easily testable prediction of the general relativity, though, is
that matter entering a maximally rotating black hole should be last seen orbiting at near the
speed of light, as seen from far away. The near light-speed limit was confirmed by measuring
the heating and spectral line broadening of nuclear emissions at the inner edge of the
surrounding accretion disk. Pictured above is an artist's illustration depicting an accretion disk
of normal matter swirling around a black hole, with a jet emanating from the top.
An ideal method of observing black holes is far from being reality: gravitational wave detectors
of sufficient sensitivity, that should be able to measure the vibrations in space-time generated
by black holes as they form from a collapsing star, when they ingest large amounts of matter, or
if they interact, even collide with a second black hole or another massive object, such as a
neutron star.

Until this dream comes true, researchers study the bright light emitted by the swirling
gas which frequently indicates not only that a black hole is present, but also likely attributes.
The gas surrounding GRO J1655-40, for example, has been found to display an unusual
flickering at a rate of 450 times a second. Given a previous mass estimate for the central object
of seven times the mass of our Sun, the rate of the fast flickering can be explained by a black
hole that is rotating very rapidly. What physical mechanisms actually cause the flickering -- and
a slower quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) -- in accretion disks surrounding black holes and
neutron stars remains a topic of much research. However, there is a technique that uses the
quasi-periodic oscillation in order to determine the black holes mass. It consists of a
relationship between black holes and the inner part of their surrounding disks, where gas
spirals inward before reaching the event horizon. The hot gas piles up near the black hole and
radiates a torrent of X-rays, with an intensity that varies in a pattern that repeats itself over a
nearly regular interval. This signal is the QPO. As black holes increase in mass, the congestion
zone is pushed farther out, so the QPO clock ticks slower and slower.
In the following paragraph we shall introduce one of the most interesting appearances
of a black hole. The Cygnus X-1 binary star system contains one of the best candidates for a
black hole. The system was discovered because it is one of the brightest X-ray sources on the
sky, shining so bright it was detected by the earliest rockets carrying cameras capable of seeing
the previously unknown X-ray sky.

The star's very name indicates that it is the single brightest X-ray source in the constellation of
the Swan Cygnus. A compact object situated there contains about nine times the mass of the
Sun and changes its brightness continually on several time scales, at least down to milliseconds,
behavior easy to explain with the black hole model. Pictured above is an artistic impression of
the Cygnus X-1 system. On the left is a bright blue supergiant star, which is estimated as having
about 30 times the mass of our Sun. Cygnus X-1 is depicted on the right, connected to its
supergiant companion by a stream of gas, and surrounded by an impressive accretion disk.
Strangely, the Cygnus X-1 black hole candidate appears to have formed without a bright
supernova explosion.
Black holes still raise many questions in the scientific world of the 21
st
century. Some of
these questions are cited here: what if theres a way to combine all four fundamental forces in
the great unification theory?, what happens to matter when it falls into a black hole?, or
can a stable wormhole be created in order to make everyones dream come true space-time
journey through parallel universes?