– CANCELLED – Physics & Astronomy/STAR cluster seminar: Lost Horizons

PLEASE NOTE:

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED IN THE SPRING. THE PHYSICS DEPARTMENT APOLOGIZES FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.

Dr. Gabor Kunstatter,
Department of Physics, University of Winnipeg

In February of 2016, LIGO announced the detection of gravitational waves emitted by the merger of two massive black holes, providing astounding confirmation of the validity in the strong field region of Einstein’s theory of gravity as well as the first direct evidence for the existence of black holes. According to Einstein’s theory, at the center of every black hole there lurks a “singularity” where the known laws of physics break down. Stephen Hawking showed in the ’70’s that black holes might irreversibly destroy information, leading to the “black hole information loss conundrum”. After a brief review of the conundrum, I will describe recent attempts by myself and collaborators to gain insights by modelling the dynamics of regular (i.e. non-singular) black Hole (RBH) formation and evaporation within a self-consistent framework.