Black holes are one of the most mysterious phenomena in the Universe. For decades, physicists have tried to understand how they work and how they interact with their environment. Stephen Hawking’s theory, formulated in 1974, represents one of the most famous ideas about black holes.
However, recent research by Radbor University in the Netherlands has shown that Hawking’s theory is somewhat inadequate. In their paper, published in the arXiv preprint repository, the scientists argue that a black hole’s event horizon is not necessary for the evaporation process.
According to Hawking, black holes evaporate as a result of the fact that near their event horizon, pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles are spontaneously born. One of the particles may fly away, forming radiation, while the other falls beyond the event horizon, causing the pair to cease to be virtual. According to the law of conservation of mass, radiation causes the black hole to lose mass, which leads to its evaporation.
However, new research has shown that the event horizon is not as important in this process as previously thought. Gravity and the curvature of spacetime itself also produce Hawking radiation, which causes all sufficiently massive objects in the universe to evaporate.
This means that any large objects, such as the remnants of evolved stars, have enough mass to create the curvature of spacetime and also evaporate. This changes our view of the distant future of the Universe.
However, scientists point out that this phenomenon should not give rise to the information paradox, according to which information about the state of the particles within a cosmic object is lost when it evaporates. Further theoretical studies regarding the entropy of the object and the thermal nature of the radiation are needed to prove the preservation of information.
Earlier it has been shown that information in black holes actually should not be lost, but so far no explanation has been offered as to how information can leave a black hole at evaporation.
Thus, the new research confirms Hawking’s theory that black holes disappear through evaporation, but also indicates that the event horizon is not as important in this process as previously thought. This opens up new possibilities for studying this mysterious phenomenon and understanding its influence on the universe.