Black holes are places of immense gravitational force(NOT infinte. Some older outdated resources may tell you that, but its false) into which surrounding matter is drawn by gravitational forces. Earlyer laws state that the gravity is so powerful that nothing, not even radiation, can escape from the black hole. However, by doing a calculation in the basics of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes, Hawking showed quantum mechanics allows black holes to emit radiation.
You can understand it by imagining that particle-antiparticle radiation is emitted from just beyond the event horizon. This radiation does not come directly from the black hole itself, but rather is a direct result of virtual particles being "boosted" by the black holes gravitation into becoming real particles.
A more accurate, but still much simplified view of this is that vacuum fluctuations cause a particle-antiparticle pair to appear close to the event horizon of a black hole(check my topic "faster than light?". One of the pair falls into the black hole while the other escapes. In order to fill the energy 'hole' left by the pair's instant creation, energy tunnels out of the black hole and across the event horizon. By this process the black hole loses mass, and to an outside observer it would appear that the black hole has just emitted a particle.
An example
A black hole of one solar mass has a temperature of only 60 nanokelvins. in fact, such a black hole would intake far more microwave radiation than it emits. A black hole of 4.5 × 10²² kg would be in equilibrium at 2.7 kelvins, absorbing as much radiation as it emits(Reference: "Alpha and Omega, Charles Seife). Yet smaller primordial black holes would emit more than they absorb, and thereby lose mass.
The Hawking radiation shows that the laws of black hole thermodynamics have a complete physical meaning.
When particles escape, the black hole loses a small amount of its energy and therfore of its mass (mass and energy are related by einstein's equation E = mc2, see topic "faster than light?").
Have you ever heard about the very strange Explosions of Gamma Rays? Well this can be solved with Hawking Radiation. Unlike most things in the unviverse, black holes temperature increases the more mass it looses. With the likely quantam end of a HUGE explosion of Gamma Rays.
This was meant as a more "on topic" place for me and Princ3 to agrue about black holes. He needs some real info so he's not talking out of his butt.
Edit: Oh and Cata, if you see any mistakes then tell me.
Edited by Sonic, 02 July 2006 - 07:12 PM.















