Black Hole Phenomenology  

In General > s.a. [gravitational phenomenology]; astronomy; sources of gravitational radiation.
* History: The idea of the existence of black holes seemed reasonable only after the discovery of pulsars in 1968.
* Status: 2005, Dozens of compact objects with masses > 3 Msun are known, and identified as black hole candidates.
Some of these have masses of 5–20 Msun and are found in X-ray binaries, the rest have Ms from a million to a billion Msun and are found in galactic nuclei; There is strong circumstantial evidence that many of them have event horizons.
* Parameters: The simplest black hole parameter to measure is the mass; We do not expect to find black holes with appreciable electric charge; A variety of methods are being tried to estimate their spin parameters, such as the polarization of X-rays emitted very close to the event horizon (in 1995 this was still not possible).
* Remark: The notion of event horizon is a global one; The local analogs is those of trapped surface, or isolated/dynamical horizon.
@ Reviews: Lasota SA(99)may; Rees in(03)ap/04; Cherepashchuk gq/05-in [search]; Narayan NJP(05)ap [astrophysics]; Bilic ap/06-in [esp X-ray binaries]; Müller ap/07-in [evidence]; Romero a0805-ln.
@ Falling in: Tammelo & Kask GRG(97) [passage through horizon]; Krasnikov a0804 [pedagogical].
> Types of phenomena: see tests of general relativity with light and with orbits; gamma-ray astronomy; particle models; wormholes.

Stages in Black Hole Evolution > s.a. black hole formation and radiation.
* Evaporation: After black hole formation, in addition to possible growth by accretion of additional matter, the stages are (i) Balding, in which the black hole loses its hair and becomes stationary; (ii) Hawking radiation, in which the black hole shrinks; and (iii) Quantum gravity phase, about which we still don't know much.
* Hawking radiation: For small black holes, look for -rays over the background.
@ General references: Adams et al PLB(99) [effect of a cosmological constant on radiation]; Dalal & Griest PLB(00)ap [all eventually evaporate].
@ Hawking radiation: Stephens PLA(89); Rosu IJMPD(94)gq/96, NCB(93)gq/95, MPLA(93)gq/97, MPLA(98), G&C(01)gq/94.

Matter and Radiation near Black Holes > s.a. geodesic; neutrinos; Phantom Fields.
* Blandford-Znajek effect: The emission of relativistic charged particle jets by the magnetic field surrounding a black hole.
* Infalling matter: The signature for radiation from a companion in a binary system, accretion disk, especially X-rays, includes no pulsating character, but possibly with modulation from disk and black hole spin.
@ Accretion: Chakrabarti PRP(96)ap; Watarai & Mineshige ap/03/PASJ [inner disk edge]; Das MNRAS(02)ap [transonic aspects], MNRAS(04)ap/03 [matter close to event horizon]; McKinney ap/05/ApJ, ap/05/ApJ [and jet formation]; news pw(08)apr [optical bursts]; > s.a. perturbations.
@ Infalling matter: Tanaka et al Nat(95)jun [gravitational redshift]; Chakrabarti ap/98/IJP [rev]; Biermann et al ap/02-in.
@ Horizon evidence: Menou et al ap/97-in, gq/98-in; García et al ap/00/ApJ; Narayan & Heyl gq/02-in; Abramowicz et al A&A(02)ap [no proof]; Done & Gierlinski MNRAS(03)ap/02 [signature]; Narayan A&G(03)ap [no X-ray bursts].
@ Scattering: Sánchez ht/97; Levin PRD(99)ap/98 [echo from chaotic scattering]; Hernández et al gq/07 [Schwarzschild, absorption and reflection]; > s.a. Superradiance.
@ Lensing: Ohanian AJP(87); Virbhadra & Ellis PRD(00)ap/99 [by Schwarzschild]; Jackson PRD(01)gq [no hiding, and holography].

Black Hole Detection and Observation > s.a. analogs [and mimickers]; types of black holes.
* Status: There are many candidates, in a range of masses from stellar ones to supermassive ones in galactic cores, but no definitive evidence that they really are black holes; Although some people say that it is possible to observe effects arising from the presence of a horizon, the most convincing type may be the detection of the specific frequencies predicted for quasinormal modes, for example in ringdowns after mergers.
@ Appearance: Ames & Thorne ApJ(68); de Felice & Usseglio-Tomasset CQG(93) [orbiting]; Nemiroff AJP(93)ap; Stuckey AJP(93) [surrounding objects]; Marck CQG(96)gq/95; Zakharov et al gq/05-in; Vachaspati et al gq/06 [from quantum collapse].
@ Microscopic black holes: Alvarez-Muñiz et al PRD(02) [with neutrino telescopes]; Khriplovich et al a0710 [small one passing through Earth]; > s.a. black hole formation.

Other > s.a. black hole formation; kerr; Mass Inflation; Penrose Process; quantum black holes; quantum cloning; spacetime subsets.
* Energy extraction: Motivated by the search for viable models for the central engine of quasars, AGNs, and GRBs; One proposal is the Blandford–Znajek mechanism (see above).
* Retro-MACHOs: A black hole may act as a retro-lens which, if illuminated by a powerful light source, deflects light ray paths to large bending angles, allowing us to detect the black hole.
@ General references: Ruffini ap/98-in [electromagnetic particle production]; Dimopoulous & Landsberg PRL(01) + pn(01)sep [in the lab?].
@ As retro-MACHOs: Holz & Wheeler ApJ(02)ap [Schwarzschild]; De Paolis et al A&A(04)ap, Zakharov et al ap/04/A&A [Kerr].
@ Particles and fields: Kuchiev PRD(04)gq/03, EPL(04)gq/03 [albedo]; de Diego et al ap/04/GRG [electric charge].
@ Jet formation: Koide et al ap/99-in, ap/99/ApJL; de Felice & Zanotti GRG(00)ap/99; Gariel et al gq/07 [from Penrose process].
@ Other rotating black holes: Wex ap/99-in [frame dragging].
@ Accelerating black holes: Podolsky et al PRD(03)gq [radiation, in AdS]; > s.a. c-metric.
@ Binary black holes: D'Eath 96 [dynamics]; Schutz gq/04-in, Kesden a0807 [mergers]; > s.a. models in numerical relativity, sources of gravitational radiation.
@ Energy extraction: Li & Paczynski ApJL(00)ap; Krolik ap/00-in [magnetic]; Frolov & Fursaev PRD(01)ht/00 [with cosmic strings]; Kim et al JCAP(03) [magnetic alignment]; Straumann a0709-in [rev].
@ Related topics: Jacobson PRD(98)ht/97 [near-extremal, decay]; Emparan et al JHEP(03) [in brane world]; Gott & Freedman ap/03/PRD [life preserver]; Bekenstein gq/03-in [preparing a desired black hole]; Khriplovich et al a0801 [passage of small black hole through Earth]; news pw(08)apr [blazars]; > s.a. black holes [interior], black hole uniqueness, electromagnetism and dirac fields in curved spacetime, fine structure constant, variation of constants.

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