Upper bound on the center-of-mass energy of the collisional Penrose process
Following the interesting work of Bañados, Silk, and West (2009) [6], it is repeatedly stated in the physics literature that the center-of-mass energy, Ec.m, of two colliding particles in a maximally rotating black-hole spacetime can grow unboundedly. For this extreme scenario to happen, the particl...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2016-08-01
|
| Series: | Physics Letters B |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269316302817 |
| Summary: | Following the interesting work of Bañados, Silk, and West (2009) [6], it is repeatedly stated in the physics literature that the center-of-mass energy, Ec.m, of two colliding particles in a maximally rotating black-hole spacetime can grow unboundedly. For this extreme scenario to happen, the particles have to collide at the black-hole horizon. In this paper we show that Thorne's famous hoop conjecture precludes this extreme scenario from occurring in realistic black-hole spacetimes. In particular, it is shown that a new (and larger) horizon is formed before the infalling particles reach the horizon of the original black hole. As a consequence, the center-of-mass energy of the collisional Penrose process is bounded from above by the simple scaling relation Ec.mmax/2μ∝(M/μ)1/4, where M and μ are respectively the mass of the central black hole and the proper mass of the colliding particles. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0370-2693 1873-2445 |