| MadSci Network: Physics |
If the event horizon of a black hole is not smooth when the black hole forms, it will quickly (within seconds) become smooth through gravitational radiation. (See "The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time" by Stephen W. Hawking and George F. R. Ellis, or "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" by Kip S. Thorne.)
The conjectured, but not yet observed, Hawking radiation is black-body
radiation; that is, the radiation spectrum is described by Planck's law
for an absolute Hawking temperature T that depends inversely on the mass
of the black hole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body_radiation
All photon energies (or frequencies or wavelengths) are emitted, with a peak energy that is proportional to the Hawking temperature. Imagine replacing the event horizon by an iron shell of the same radius. Then heat the iron shell until it has the same absolute temperature as the calculated Hawking temperature. The thermal radiation emitted by the iron shell will be identical (well, almost) to the Hawking radiation.
An individual photon would appear to originate from one point on the surface. But the next photon would appear to come from a different point on the surface. All parts of the surface emit photons into different directions.
--Dr. Randall J. Scalise http://www.physics.smu.edu/scalise
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