\u201cIt\u2019s a cool result,\u201d says Professor Thrane, \u201cbecause we\u2019re using black holes to learn about the nuclear reactions inside stars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listening to the \u2018graveyard\u2019 of stars<\/p>\n
The discovery comes from observations made by the LIGO\u2013Virgo\u2013KAGRA Collaboration<\/a>, which detects gravitational waves \u2013 tiny ripples in spacetime produced when massive objects such as black holes collide.<\/p>\n These signals allow astronomers to measure the masses of black holes. Over time, hundreds of detections have built up a kind of \u201ccosmic census\u201d of black holes, revealing patterns in how they form.<\/p>\n And in that census, a curious feature has emerged.<\/p>\n Black holes more than 45 times the mass of the sun are unexpectedly rare. This \u201cforbidden range\u201d suggests that something is preventing stars in this mass range from leaving behind black holes.<\/p>\n When stars become bombs<\/p>\n The explanation may lie in a delicate balance deep inside massive stars.<\/p>\n Throughout their lives, stars are held up by nuclear reactions pushing outward against the force of gravity pulling in. For a large fraction of massive stars, gravity eventually wins \u2013 the core collapses,\u00a0 leaving behind a black hole.<\/p>\n But for some very massive stars, the ending is different.<\/p>\n At extreme temperatures present in those massive stars, light itself begins to transform into matter \u2013 pairs of electrons and anti-electrons (called \u201cpositrons<\/a>\u201d). This process robs the star of pressure, causing it to collapse. But instead of forming a black hole, the collapse dramatically heats up the star, triggering a runaway thermonuclear explosion.<\/p>\n The result is a pair-instability supernova<\/a>, a blast so powerful that the entire star is obliterated.<\/p>\n Crucially, nothing is left behind. No remnant. No black hole.<\/p>\n This is why the missing black holes matter.<\/p>\n If stars in a certain mass range are completely destroyed, then black holes of corresponding masses should be absent. The newly-observed gap fits with this prediction, offering indirect but compelling evidence that pair-instability supernovae are occurring in nature.<\/p>\n It is, in effect, a signature written not in what we see, but in what we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n Black holes that shouldn\u2019t exist<\/p>\n Yet the story doesn\u2019t\u00a0 end there.<\/p>\n Despite the gap, a small number of black holes are still found within this \u201cforbidden\u201d mass range. Their existence poses another puzzle: If they didn\u2019t form directly from stars, where did they come from?<\/p>\n One leading idea<\/a> is that they\u2019re built through mergers. Smaller black holes collide and combine, gradually growing into larger ones that would otherwise be impossible to form in a single step.<\/p>\n In this picture, black holes have a kind of afterlife, continuing to grow long after their parent stars have vanished.<\/p>\n The puzzle is just beginning<\/p>\n The existence of a forbidden mass range, along with black holes that appear to violate it, presents a new challenge for astrophysics.<\/p>\n The questions we and others are asking are: Are current models of stellar evolution complete? How common are these extreme explosions? And how efficiently do black holes grow through mergers?<\/p>\n Future gravitational-wave observations will help answer these questions, as detectors become more sensitive and the catalogue of black hole mergers continues to expand.<\/p>\n For now, one thing is clear \u2013 some of the universe\u2019s most massive stars do not quietly collapse into darkness.<\/p>\n They explode, and in doing so, they leave behind a mystery written in the missing black holes they never became.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This article was first published on Monash Lens<\/a>. Read the originalImage: Carl Knox, OzGrav\/Swinburne University of TechnologyA gap that tells a story<\/p>\n
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