I am not a physicist, but I looked up the answer to this question a few years ago and didn’t fully understand but I think it’s something like this.
Mass and energy are equivalent. So if it can lose energy then it can lose mass.
Although famously nothing can escape the black hole, energy can be lost via Hawking radiation. I don’t really understand this, but apparently quantum particle pairs are always being spontaneously created in empty space. The pair of particles are opposite: one has negative mass/energy and one positive mass/energy. Usually they are randomly created and then instantly destroy each other, resulting in zero net effect. However if this happens precisely on the event horizon of the black hole, then it’s possible for the negative mass particle to be ever so slightly inside and the positive mass particle to be ever so slightly outside. So the negative mass particle ultimately falls in, and the positive mass particle escapes. The result is that the mass of the black hole is reduced and energy flies away from the black hole.
This only kinda makes sense to me, because I’d have thought that there’d be a 50/50 chance of the positive or negative energy particle being pulled in, resulting in a net zero effect in the long term. But I think there’s some bias to the negative one falling in more often. idk really.
This is VERY MUCH a layman explanation based on something I half-understood a few years ago, so I’m sure people will come along and correct me where needed via Cunningham’s Law. But I think that’s the jist of it. I suppose if you wanted a fully rigorous scientific explanation you’d have looked it up instead of asking here.
Nearly correct, but it’s not about negative mass, because that doesn’t exist as far as I know. Rather it is about matter and antimatter which have other opposite properties, the mass is the same for both. That’s why it doesn’t matter which particle goes back into the hole, because the creation of the particle pair used up some of the energy (and therefore mass) of the black hole and if both fall back, nothing changes. But if one escapes, a minuscule amount of the mass of the black hole left its event horizon and thereby decreased its mass.
The majority of Hawking radiation is composed of photons, and photons are their own anti-particle. But black holes should radiate just as many positrons as electrons.
🤷♂️ because when we flip all their quantum numbers we still call them a photon? They have no charge, so if you flip their charge they still have no charge. They have no color, so if you flip their color they are still colorless, etc. The ability of a particle to interfere with itself is a general property of all particles, because all particles are probability waves, so this isn’t special to a photon.
Eh, I think ‘because math’ is a better description than idk, since we do kinda know why (math models), we just don’t necessarily know why (the models work that way) if that makes sense.
Yes, and it doesn’t actually matter. The anti-particle will then at some point hit a regular particle of the same type and release energy instead, leaving the universe with more energy which came from the black hole and the destroyed particle.
I am not a physicist, but I looked up the answer to this question a few years ago and didn’t fully understand but I think it’s something like this.
Mass and energy are equivalent. So if it can lose energy then it can lose mass.
Although famously nothing can escape the black hole, energy can be lost via Hawking radiation. I don’t really understand this, but apparently quantum particle pairs are always being spontaneously created in empty space. The pair of particles are opposite: one has negative mass/energy and one positive mass/energy. Usually they are randomly created and then instantly destroy each other, resulting in zero net effect. However if this happens precisely on the event horizon of the black hole, then it’s possible for the negative mass particle to be ever so slightly inside and the positive mass particle to be ever so slightly outside. So the negative mass particle ultimately falls in, and the positive mass particle escapes. The result is that the mass of the black hole is reduced and energy flies away from the black hole.
This only kinda makes sense to me, because I’d have thought that there’d be a 50/50 chance of the positive or negative energy particle being pulled in, resulting in a net zero effect in the long term. But I think there’s some bias to the negative one falling in more often. idk really.
This is VERY MUCH a layman explanation based on something I half-understood a few years ago, so I’m sure people will come along and correct me where needed via Cunningham’s Law. But I think that’s the jist of it. I suppose if you wanted a fully rigorous scientific explanation you’d have looked it up instead of asking here.
Nearly correct, but it’s not about negative mass, because that doesn’t exist as far as I know. Rather it is about matter and antimatter which have other opposite properties, the mass is the same for both. That’s why it doesn’t matter which particle goes back into the hole, because the creation of the particle pair used up some of the energy (and therefore mass) of the black hole and if both fall back, nothing changes. But if one escapes, a minuscule amount of the mass of the black hole left its event horizon and thereby decreased its mass.
Would it be possible for the antimatter particle to be ejected instead of the ‘real’ matter particular?
The majority of Hawking radiation is composed of photons, and photons are their own anti-particle. But black holes should radiate just as many positrons as electrons.
How are they their own anti-particle? Because they destructively interfere or something?
🤷♂️ because when we flip all their quantum numbers we still call them a photon? They have no charge, so if you flip their charge they still have no charge. They have no color, so if you flip their color they are still colorless, etc. The ability of a particle to interfere with itself is a general property of all particles, because all particles are probability waves, so this isn’t special to a photon.
“because math” got it.
I did use a lot of words to say “I don’t know” didn’t I.
Eh, I think ‘because math’ is a better description than idk, since we do kinda know why (math models), we just don’t necessarily know why (the models work that way) if that makes sense.
Yes, and it doesn’t actually matter. The anti-particle will then at some point hit a regular particle of the same type and release energy instead, leaving the universe with more energy which came from the black hole and the destroyed particle.