Event horizon could help determine evolutionary stage of a black hole

Washington, Jan 19 (ANI): Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have proposed a new way to determine the evolutionary stage of a black hole: analysing the region outside where matter cannot escape, the event horizon.

Dr Thomas Backdahl and Dr Juan A. Valiente Kroon have developed a method based on properties of the Kerr solution, a time-independent solution to the equations of General Relativity.

The solution describes a rotating, stationary (time-independent) black hole and it is thought that it also describes the final evolutionary stage of any dynamical (time-dependent) black hole.

The theory of General Relativity predicts the existence of black holes as regions in which the space and time are distorted so that nothing can escape them.

"By looking at the region outside the black hole we have shown how to ascertain how much a dynamical black hole differs from the Kerr solution. There are very strong indications that the end state of the evolution of a black hole is described by this solution," said Kroon.

The findings could have implications in developing numerical simulations of black holes.

The findings are reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A. (ANI)