What is the difference between a schwarzschild and a kerr black hole

The existence of such objects was first suggested as far back as the late s. However, it was Karl Schwarzschild , a German astronomer, who basically developed the modern idea for a black hole. The limit of this region is called the event horizon, a name which signifies that it is impossible to observe any event taking place inside it since information is unable to get out.

For a non-rotating black hole, the radius of the event horizon is known as the Schwarzschild radius , and marks the point at which the escape velocity from the black hole equals the speed of light.

In theory, any mass can be compressed sufficiently to form a black hole. The only requirement is that its physical size is less than the Schwarzschild radius. For example, our Sun would become a black hole if its mass was contained within a sphere about 2. Well inside the event horizon lies the heart of the black hole — the singularity.

Everything within the event horizon is irreversibly drawn towards this point where the curvature of spacetime becomes infinite and gravity is infinitely strong. An interesting dilemma for astrophysicists is that the physical conditions near a singularity result in the complete breakdown of the laws of physics. To avoid the situation where we could actually see this breakdown of physics occur, the cosmic censorship conjecture was proposed. This states that every singularity must have an event horizon which hides it from view — exactly what we find for black holes.

Black holes are completely characterised by only three parameters: mass, rotation and charge. There are now thought to be 4 main types of black holes if classified by mass:.

Alternatively, black holes can be classified by their two other properties of rotation and charge:. Zhang, Chin. Murphy, T. Yaqoob, M. Dovciak, and V. Karas, Astrophys. Wang, K. Xiao, and W. Lei, Mon. Wang, R. Ma, W. Lei, and G. Yao, Astrophys. Pariev, E. Blackman, and S. Boldyrev, Astron. Li, Astron. Ma, F. Yang, and D. Wang, Astrophys. Poindexter, N. Morgan, and C. Kochanek, Astrophys. Shen and A. Loeb, Astrophys. Download references. Petersburg, Russia. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.

Gnedin, T. Natsvlishvili, , published in Astronomicheskii Zhurnal, , Vol. Reprints and Permissions. Polarimetric differences between Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes in active galactic nuclei. Download citation. Received : 14 September Accepted : 13 January Published : 03 August