newsletter

OF THE James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, edinburgh

ISSN 2058-7503 (Print)

Issue No.18 Summer 2022 ISSN 2058-7511 (Online)

An Introduction to Black Holes

By Dr Naomi C. Robertson, MPhys, DPhil, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University
A black hole is region of space where the gravitational had a gravitational pull so great
pull is so strong that light is unable to escape. Since that light itself would be slowed
no light can escape, we are not able to observe black down to the extent that it would
holes directly. not be able even to be emitted.
The celebrated mathematician
The physicist, John Wheeler
Pierre-Simon Laplace (Fig. 4)
(Fig. 1) is often credited with
independently made the same
being the first to coin the term Figure 4: Pierre Simon Laplace,
prediction as Michell around a (1749–1827), called the ‘French
‘black hole’ in 1969, however the Newton’, Wikipedia Commons
similar time. Michell further
concept dates back much further
proposed that these ‘dark stars’
to the Rev. John Michell (Fig. 2)
might be numerous across the night sky but,
who hypothesised the existence
Figure 1: John Wheeler since they emitted no light, their positions would
(1911–2008), Wikipedia Commons of a ‘dark star’ in 1783. It took
appear to correspond to apparently empty
until the 1960s for the idea
regions of space.
of black holes to gain any
observational support but they Following this initial suggestion of a black hole by
are now firmly established in Michell and Laplace, the concept was not picked
our cosmic inventory. up by scientists at the time. It seemed possible to
explain all the properties of light using the wave
From ‘Dark Star’ description and so the particle theory for light fell
Figure 2: Rev. John Michell
(1724–1793), courtesy of to ‘Black Hole’ out of fashion and the idea of ‘dark stars’ was
go51johnmitchell.weebly.com/biography.html
In the late 1700s, natural probably lost as a result. Although it seemed plausible
philosophers were debating whether the nature that gravity could impact light, Newtonian physics
of light was a particle or a wave. When considering was not able to explain it.
light as a wave it was difficult to envisage how light
could feel the force of gravity. However, if light was This required Einstein’s (Fig. 5)
made up of particles, it was easier to imagine how theory of general relativity,
gravity might effect particles in the same way that put forward in 1915, which
gravity dictates the motion of the planets or of a described cosmic bodies
‘Newtonian’ apple falling from a tree. living within the fabric of
a curved space and time,
The discovery by Ole Roemer such that the planets, stars
(Fig. 3) that light travels at a and galaxies tell space and
finite speed lead to the notion time how to curve, which
that gravity could potentially dictates how objects then
slow down light. John Michell move through space. Figure 5: Albert Einstein (1979–1955)
put forward the idea of the

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portrait after receiving the
1921 Nobel Prize in Physics
possible existence of stars that
Figure 3: Ole Rømer (1644 – 1710),
Wikipedia Commons
newsletter OF THE James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, edinburgh

The astronomer Karl Schwarzschild support the star against its own gravity. At the time,
(Fig. 6) used Einstein’s equations to this idea seemed completely ‘off-the-wall’.
show that, if matter was compressed The American scientist, Robert
to a point, which is now referred to Oppenheimer (Fig. 8) – famous for
as a ‘singularity’, nothing would be leading the Manhattan atomic bomb
able to escape the region of space project in World War II – investigated
around it. The extent of this region this further and in 1939 showed that
Figure 6: Karl Schwarzschild
(1873–1916) is known as the ‘event horizon’ and as the gravitational pull of a star
Wikipedia Commons defines the region of space where it increases, the path on which light
is no longer possible to observe anything that is going Figure 8: travels becomes so distorted that
Robert Oppenheimer
on inside this region. (1904 –1967), nothing can finally escape, not even
Wikipedia Commons
light. This region of space from which
Formation of a Black Hole light cannot escape is now known as a black hole.
A star begins its life as a huge ball of hydrogen gas.
As the gravitational pull squeezes the gas closer What happens inside a black hole?
together it heats up until a nuclear fusion reaction The event horizon, which defines the edge of this
begins in the core causing the star to start shining. This region, is the point of no return; any object that is
process converts the hydrogen into helium and continues travelling towards this black hole will not be able to
until the hydrogen in the core is almost depleted. The escape once it has crossed over into this region.
core of the star then begins to contract and heats up As an object approaches the event horizon, the end
further, causing the helium to burn to carbon. of the object which is nearer to the black hole feels a
The radiation pressure generated by the nuclear stronger gravitational force than the other end.
fusion reaction inside the star causes it to expand As a result, the object is pulled apart or ‘spaghettified’.
until it balances the gravitation pull holding the star In the late 1960s, Stephen Hawking
together. This process of contraction and expansion (Fig. 9) and Roger Penrose (Fig. 10)
is repeated while heavier and heavier elements are showed, from considerations of
created in the core of the star. The evolution and general relativity, that within the
eventual fate of the star is determined by how much black hole there must be a singularity
mass the star contains and, for the most massive stars, of infinite density and curvature
this process will continue until the element iron is Figure 9: (of space and time). At this point,
formed. No heavier elements can be produced beyond Stephen Hawking
(1942 – 2018) the laws of science break down.
iron, as the nuclear burning of iron does not produce Wikipedia Commons
Observers outside the black hole
enough energy for the process to continue. would, however, be oblivious to
Once a star has run out of fuel, it begins to collapse this as they would not be able to
under gravity. From our understanding of sub-atomic see beyond the event horizon.
physics, we know that particles can be squeezed This event horizon essentially acts
together only so much. Thus, when a star starts to as a cloak of invisibility around
Figure 10: Sir Roger Penrose
contract at the end of its life, this contraction will, at (born 1931) holding his the singularity.
Nobel Prize,
some point, stop as the outward pressure from the Wikipedia Commons
particles counteracts the inward gravitational pull. Another prediction from general
relativity is that, as cosmic bodies
This is how a ‘white dwarf star’ or a ‘neutron star’ move through space and time, they send out ripples or
is formed and is the fate of stars which have a mass ‘gravitational waves’ which carry energy away from the
of around three times that of our Sun. object. For example, as planets orbit around the Sun in
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Fig. 7), our solar system, they send out gravitational waves.
who went on to win a Nobel Prize As a result, their orbits are ever so slightly reduced
for physics, questioned what would due to the loss of energy. This effect is so small that
happen if a star was more massive fortunately we do not have to worry! However, a
than this. What he found was that the gradually reducing orbit has been seen in pairs of

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pressure from the already compressed stars that are orbiting each other and, as a result,
particles would not be sufficient to spiral in towards one another.
Figure 7: Subrahmanyan
Chandrasekhar (1910 –1995),
Wikipedia Commons
newsletter OF THE James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, edinburgh

Properties of Black Holes Observing the invisible in binary systems

Given that only a stellar mass of a few tens of times By the late 1960’s, the mathematical description and
that of the sun is required to form a black hole, it was theoretical prediction for the existence of black holes
not clear whether other stellar properties made a was well established; however there was no observational
difference to the black hole that finally resulted. data to support this. The question was how could this
evidence be collected if black holes do not emit light
Werner Israel (Fig. 11) showed that,
directly? The key was recognised back in the 1700s,
according to general relativity,
in John Michell’s original work, where he noted
for a non-rotating black hole,
that a black hole (his ‘dark star’) would still exert a
only the mass of the star that was
gravitational force on nearby objects.
present beforehand mattered.
All non-rotating black holes were Pairs of stars orbiting each other, referred to as ‘binary
shown to be spherical in shape and systems’, that were locked together by gravity had been
Figure 11: Werner Israel
(1931–2022), courtesy their size determined by their mass regularly observed. Single stars that appeared to be
researchgate.com
alone, all the other characteristics orbiting around some unseen object, had also been
of the star were lost once it became a black hole. observed, hinting at the presence of a black hole
(the unseen object). This was not concrete evidence
This result was the solution to Einstein’s equations that
however as the unseen object might not be a black hole,
Karl Schwarzschild had found decades earlier. A star
just a very faint star.
need not be perfectly spherical to form a black hole as
the gravitational waves emitted when star collapses
would make it spherical in its final black hole state.
For the case where the initial star
is rotating, Roy Kerr (Fig. 12)
discovered solutions to Einstein’s
equations which showed that, for
rotating black holes, the final
black hole rotates at a constant rate,
and that their size and shape is
Figure 12: Roy Kerr (born 1934), determined by their mass and rate
Courtesy ICRA.Net-ISFAHAN
Figure 13:
Astronomy Meeting of rotation. Rotation means that the Artist’s impression of a stellar-mass black hole (on the left) accreting material from its
black hole is no longer perfectly companion star as they orbit one another in a binary. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M.Kornmesser

spherical and bulges around its equator; the faster a

black hole rotates the bigger the bulge becomes. In a binary system, if the two objects are close enough
to each other, the outer atmosphere of one or both
These two scenarios define the two types of black hole:
stars can be gravitationally distorted and, in some
a ‘Schwarzschild black hole’ which is non-rotating and a
instances, material can be exchanged from one to
‘Kerr black hole’ which rotates.
another (Fig. 13). Considering the case of a black hole
Low mass black holes (or other compact object like a neutron star or a white
Low mass black holes could intriguingly also exist dwarf) in a binary system with a star, gas from the star
(because they would be well below the mass limit can fall onto the black hole, releasing gravitational
required for stellar mass black holes to be formed). potential energy by emitting X-rays. As the material is
These would have a mass of as little as that of a planet. transferred from the star, it forms into an accretion disk
This type of black hole could form if matter was around the black hole. Friction inside the disc causes
compacted to an incredibly high density due to large it to heat up with the inner region closest to the
external pressure. Such high temperatures and black hole being heated more than the outer parts.
high-pressure conditions existed in the very early As the material falls towards the black hole and loses
universe and so these black holes are referred to gravitational potential energy, part of this energy is
as ‘primordial black holes’. Being able to find these released by jets of particles that are directed

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primordial black holes could inform astronomers perpendicular to the accretion disk.
about conditions just after the Big Bang.
newsletter OF THE James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, edinburgh

The galactic X-ray source known as Cygnus X-1, The photographing, for the first time,
was discovered in 1964 and was the first observation of a black hole
of a black-hole-star binary system. Since X-rays cannot
penetrate through the Earth’s atmosphere, early One of the most exciting developments in recent times
observations of X-rays from space were made using was the first ever photograph of a black hole in 2019.
sub-orbital rockets. Nowadays, astronomers have The black hole was at the centre of a relatively nearby
many space-based X-ray telescopes. By measuring the galaxy called M87 (Fig. 14). It was a historic first for
orbit of the star, astronomers were able to conclude astronomers that was only made possible due to the
that the object the star was circling must be a black advanced technology used along with modern
hole as nothing else would be massive enough. Since computational facilities. It was accomplished by
the discovery of Cygnus X-1, there have been several using a network of telescopes which together form
other similar systems found within our galaxies the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).
providing more support that black holes do exist.

Supermassive Black Holes known

as Quasars
Similar observations have been made for the case of
supermassive black holes, which are known as ‘quasars’.
These are extremely luminous objects that were first
detected from observations made with radio
telescopes. When they were first discovered, there
was a great mystery as to what could possibly be
producing this emission, since they appeared so bright
and yet so far away. It has since been concluded that Figure 14: The first image of a black hole using data collected by the EHT from 2017 to 2019.
Credit: EHT Collaboration.
only a supermassive black hole could be the source of
these observations. The mechanism is like the above The Supermassive Black Hole
description of X-ray emission from stellar black holes, at the Centre of our Galaxy
with material falling in towards the black hole creating
an accretion disc around the black hole. As early as the 1930s however, a source of radio
emission was discovered in the constellation of
As the matter spirals in, the black hole rotates in the
Sagittarius close to where the centre of the Milky Way
same direction, which creates a magnetic field, similar
was believed to be; this radio source became known
in form to the magnetic field around the Earth. As this
as Sagittarius A (Fig. 15).
material gets closer to the black hole, the energy
contained within the particles increases and they are Later observations in the 1980’s found that this was a
then ejected out along the axis of rotation by the complex radio source consisting of several components
magnetic field creating jets of high energy particles. including a very compact source that was called
These jets have now been seen for many galaxies. Sagittarius A*.
It is still not clear, however, how ‘supermassive black Figure 15: The centre of the
milky way. This image is made
holes’, which have a mass of millions to billions of times from observations (in blue)
that of our Sun, are formed. Some have suggested of X-rays using the Chansra t
elescope and infrared Data from
that the collapse of massive clouds of gas during the the Hubble Space Telescope
(shown in purple). The inset
formation of a galaxy could produce a supermassive shows the X-ray emission from
black hole or, alternatively, that stellar mass black holes SAgittarius A*.

could accrete so much matter that they grow to Credit: X-ray:

NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al.,
become supermassive black holes. IR: NASA/STScI.

A further possibility is that black holes, which are

sufficiently close to one another, merge to form a
supermassive black hole.

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These are still an open questions and an active area
of research.
newsletter OF THE James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, edinburgh

Stars and gas close to the centre of galaxies have been are quantum fluctuations in these fields. These
observed to have high orbital velocities which can most fields can generate pairs of ‘virtual particles’, which
easily be explained by a massive object at the centre appear together before annihilating each other,
which is creating a strong gravitational field close by. effectively zipping in and out of existence. These
Direct evidence for this being a supermassive black virtual particles cannot be detected with a particle
holes was inferred from looking at how material near detector in the same way as real particles; however,
the centre of galaxy is orbiting. their existence can only be inferred from indirect
Andrea Ghez (Fig. 16) and effects such as changes in the energy of electron
Reinhard Genzel (Fig. 17) were orbits in atoms.
awarded the Nobel prize for Virtual particles are created in particle/anti-particle
physics in 2020 for their work pairs, such that one particle has positive energy
on showing that Sagittarius A* and the other has negative energy (in relation to
is the supermassive black hole
Figure 16: Andrea Ghez, the vacuum energy) since energy cannot be created
(born 1965), with her Nobel Prize, at the centre of our own galaxy,
Wikipedia Commons out of from nothing. Normally, these pairs of particles
the Milky Way.
would rapidly annihilate each other. Close to a black
It is about four million times the hole though, it becomes possible that one of the
mass of the Sun. This black hole negative energy particles crosses the event horizon
has been recently photographed (thus reducing the energy and mass of the black hole)
for the first time (Fig. 18). while the remaining positive energy particle might
It is believed that most travel away from the black hole and thus be emitted
Figure 17: Reindard Genzel galaxies have a supermassive from the black hole. This emission is the Hawking
(born 1952), Wikipedia Commons
black hole at their centre. radiation.

However the timescale for a stellar mass black hole

to evaporate completely is expected to be much
longer than the age of the Universe.

Primordial black holes, on the other hand, have a

lot less mass than stellar black holes. As such, they
have much smaller evaporation timescales and
therefore it is possible that the smallest black holes
could have already radiated themselves away through
Hawking radiation. The primordial black holes
with a slightly larger mass will not have had enough
time to evaporate completely and could still be
emitting radiation through X-rays and gamma rays.
Figure 18: This is Sagittarius A* the Black Hole at the centre of our galaxy. It is second image
ever to be taken of a black hole. Credit: EHT Collaboration
It is possible then to find these black holes from
flashes of gamma rays during the final stages of
Can black holes radiate energy? their existence.
In the 1970s Stephen Hawking conjectured that black The astonishing concept by Hawking is that black
holes can radiate energy. This concept is now known holes do not live forever and, while a black hole may
as ‘Hawking radiation’. have appeared to be the full stop at the end of a star’s
The concept behind Hawking radiation is that empty life, it may continue its own slow evolution and
space is not empty of energy after all but contains what eventual demise.
is called the ‘vacuum energy’. Although, in a vacuum,
there may be no particles present, there may still be
gravitational and electromagnetic fields with their own

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energy. From Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle there
newsletter OF THE James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, edinburgh

When black holes collide Conclusion

Pairs of black holes, which orbit in a binary system, Current questions include, for example, how do black
have been shown to occur, with the Laser Interferometer holes impact the evolution of the galaxy they inhabit
Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) being the first (this is important for understanding galaxy formation).
to measure the case of two black holes merging. These We still need to understand the implications of Hawking’s
black holes were estimated to have masses around 36 conception of black hole evaporation. Measuring the
and 29 times the mass of the Sun. gamma-ray background in order to study primordial
black holes is also an active field of research.
From its beginnings as being only a mathematical
concept to black holes becoming powerhouses at
the centre of galaxies, much has been learnt about
black holes over the last century.
It is now is undeniable that they play an important
role in our wider understanding of the cosmos.

Figure 19: Diagram showing how the emission of gravitational waves correlates with the merging
process. The purple line shows the strength of the gravitational waves as time goes by and the
black holes get closer together. This peaks when they merge and then is rapidly damped down.
Credit: https://astrobites.org/2018/03/08/recoil-detectives-searching-for-black-hole-kicks-using-gravitational-waves/

The merging event begins with the two black holes

spiralling in towards each other. This initial phase
takes a long time and during the process very weak Prof. Neiman planting Maxwell's garden with the Einstein tree by the stake
the Einstein tree in on the right.
gravitational waves are emitted. As the distance Maxwell’s garden
between the black holes becomes ever smaller, the
speed at which they orbit increases, which, in its turn, Planting of the Einstein tree in Maxwell’s Garden
increases gravitational wave emission. Eventually, We very pleased that Professor Susan Neiman,
they get close enough that they can merge; this is when Director of the Einstein Forum in Germany, could
the emission of gravitational waves is at its highest. undertake the official planting of the Einstein tree
Once the merger has occurred, a single black hole in Maxwell’s garden when she was in Edinburgh
is left which will then ‘ringdown’, by emitting further giving the prestigious ‘Gifford Lecture’. Following
gravitational waves (Fig. 19). the visit, in 2018, of our former Chairman to
In the case of the first merger detected, a black hole Einstein’s former summerhouse near Berlin, the
that was around 62 times the mass of the Sun was Einstein tree was presented by the Einstein Forum.
created by the merging event. The sum of the two masses This was particularly appropriate as the tree was
of the original black holes was 65 times the mass of the grown from cuttings taken from an apple tree
Sun so that 3 solar masses were is lost immediately as growing in the garden of Einstein’s summerhouse
gravitational radiation. This measurement was the in Germany. The story as to how it came about
first-time gravitational waves were detected providing that this summerhouse was built for Einstein
further support for Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. was told in Maxwell Newsletter No. 13.1

James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, 14 India Street, Edinburgh EH3 6EZ.

The birthplace in 1831 of James Clerk Maxwell.
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1 https://clerkmaxwellfoundation.org/Newsletter_2019_Summer.pdf