Question

It is believed that black holes can lose rest mass energy and thus mass by:

A) Hawking radiation
B) Gravitational collapse
C) Neutrino emission
D) Stellar accretion

Answer 1

Option A). Black holes can lose mass through Hawking radiation, which involves the creation of particle-antiparticle pairs near the event horizon. One particle falls into the black hole while the other escapes, leading to a decrease in the black hole's mass. This process can continue until the black hole becomes nuclear in size.

Step-by-step explanation:

Black holes can experience a loss of mass due to Hawking radiation. Stephen Hawking claims that quantum effects just outside the event horizon allow black holes to emit energy and particles. In this process, a particle-antiparticle pair is formed close to the event horizon; one particle enters the black hole while the other escapes, causing the black hole to lose mass and energy. The result is an exponential increase in the rate of particle production as the black hole's event horizon contracts and its gravitational field strengthens. This process can go on indefinitely until the black hole reaches nuclear mass, at which point a particle and gamma ray burst occurs.