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"Burning Walls" May Stop Black Hole Formation
KentuckyFC writes "Black holes are thought to form when a star greater than 4 times the mass of the Sun explodes in a supernova and then collapses. The force of this collapse is so great that no known force can stop it. In less massive stars, the collapse cannot overcome so-called neutron degeneracy, the force that stops neutrons from being squashed together. Now a Russian physicist says another effect may be involved. He points out that quantum chromodynamics predicts that when neutrons are squashed together, matter undergoes a phase transition into "subhadronic" matter. This is very different from ordinary matter. In subhadronic form, space is essentially empty. So the phase change creates a sudden reduction in pressure, forcing any ordinary matter in the star to implode into this new vacuum. The result is a massive increase in temperature of this matter that creates a "burning wall" within the supernova. And it is this burning wall that stops the formation of a black hole, not just the degeneracy pressure of neutrons. This should lead to much greater energies inside a supernova than had been thought possible until now. And that's important because it could explain the formation of high energy gamma ray bursts that have long puzzled astrophysicists."
are supernovas now more or less likely to contribute to Global Warming?
I think we have cinematic proof that Red Matter would work.
I'm sorry, but after reading the title of the article, all I can think about is all that spicy food I ate last night...
I'm just sayin'...they shoulda called it a firewall instead of "burning walls"....it appears science has no room for marketing.
I never like when scientists can't explain a major aspect of something like a black hole. They have models/predictions etc., but there are these little pieces that are missing.
Then someone comes along with an elegant solution that fits perfectly into the existing theory/model/design and suddenly all these unexplained pieces make perfect sense.
That is what science is about. Revelation based on fact, not faith. At the end of the day I think it's a lot more rewarding, although a lot harder to come by.
Quantum chromodynamics, "subhadronic" matter,. .... , I think you got me lost there ;-)
How can these hypotheses be checked?
So supernovae can stop black holes, but we also know from documented evidence that black holes can stop a supernova, even one that threatens the entire galaxy.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
That's an interesting article. New QCD phases have been postulated for quite a while (colour superconductors etc.) but last time I talked to an expert on it and asked whether it could account for the missing energy in a Supernova (currently SN models seem to fizzle more than explode) his reply was that the phase change was too slow to release enough energy to help the SN go bang. I'll have to read the paper to see it this idea addresses this issue.
"Black holes are thought to form when a star greater than 4 times the mass of the Sun explodes in a supernova and then collapses. "
If a star is greater than _8_ solar masses you get a supernova.
Damn those degenerate neutrons!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
So... our solar system will vanish into a blackhole (in a few million of million of years...)!
That's a sad end...
I can't call that English
The phrase that stuck out for me was, 'a phase transition into "subhadronic" matter'. While I certainly recognize the need for new vocabulary when a new model/theory/phenomenon is described or discovered, this particular phrase, "subhadronic matter", gives me Star Trek Voyager flashbacks.
"Captain, the Borg are pulling us in!"
"Lt. Torres, can you reroute the power to the deflection array dish, and invert the signal to send out a subhadronic matter stream? That should disrupt the tractor beam long enough for us to warp out!"
"Recreate the forces inside a collapsing star, of course! Why didn't I think of that?"
In other news, Microsoft Windows users are now covered under the Americans with Disabilties Act...
So now the sky, and the walls are burning?
Great! Let's use the scientific method to test this hypothesis. Oh wait, nevermind.
Sorry, but it's hard not to be cynical about astrophysics. Dark matter sounds like something invented by a writer for a Japanese cartoon series, and the scientific explanation sounds about as likely to be true.
They can rest easy knowing that their Fire-Wall, will protect them from a Black Hole too...not just outside intruders!
When one of those black holes comes burning thru space right thru Uranus so put the Earth in great heat... "Sex Is Zero" will timely and more...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
There are a lot of very difficult theoretical problems involved in trying to describe the structure of neutron stars. The classic picture of a star made of nothing but neutrons is probably not quite right, and is possibly qualitatively wrong in important ways. There's supposed to be an upper limit on the mass of a neutron star, and the theoretical uncertainties get greater as you get closer to this mass limit. E.g., it's possible that you get quark stars. We just don't know, because we don't know the behavior of the strong and weak nuclear forces with sufficient precision to be able to extrapolate to these extreme conditions.
Given all that uncertainty, which has existed for many decades, it's not at all surprising to me that there's a corresponding uncertainty about the conditions under which a neutron star is or isn't unstable with respect to collapse into a black hole. The paper, which is linked to from the end of the Technology Review article, is pretty heavy going. My field is nuclear physics, not relativistic astrophysics, and I had a hard time understanding it. The author's English is also pretty hard to understand, so it's hard to tell exactly what he's saying his conclusions are. But if you look at the end, he seems to be suggesting that black holes actually do not form.
I wonder to what extent existing observations constrain this idea. For instance, we know that the Sagittarius A* object at the center of our galaxy has a mass of at least 3.7 million solar masses and a radius of less than 6.25 light-hours. It would be interesting to know what he proposes this object is, if he says it's not a black hole.
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That's where you set off a bunch of supernova with different intitial conditions and compare the results with theory?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I never understood how a black hole could ever form if at the event horizon time at a distant perspective stops, matter would pass the event horizon infinitely far in the future, and this would effect the formation of the event horizon itself as the event horizon started to form, time at that location would grind to a halt. Now this creates a paradox as to what would happen to something at the event horizon, but I read a solution that thanks to hawkins radiation, you would never pass the event horizon (or the event horizon would never form) as the rate of hawkins would increase approaching infinity as you approach the event horizon, so you would pop out the other side of the black hole at some stupid amount of time in the future after watching the black hole evaporate away before you before you every entered it.
But what they're saying that the new Star Trek movie had it backwards? That Walls of Fire stop Black Holes, not the other way around? Wow.
I knew J.J. Abrams was good, but to hit you with a twist ending AFTER you've already left the theater is incredible.
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