astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

, blitzars are a hypothetical type of

neutron star A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. white ...

, specifically

pulsar A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...

s that can rapidly collapse into

black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...

s if their spinning slows down.

Heino Falcke Heino Falcke (born 26 September 1966) is a German Dutch professor of radio astronomy and astroparticle physics at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He was a winner of the 2011 Spinoza Prize. His main field of study is black holes, and he is the orig ...

and

Luciano Rezzolla Luciano Rezzolla (born 1967) is an Italian professor of relativistic astrophysics and numerical relativity at the Goethe University Frankfurt. His main field of study is the physics and astrophysics of compact objects such as black holes and ne ...

proposed these stars in 2013 as an explanation for

fast radio burst In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio pulse of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond to 3 seconds, caused by some high-energy astrophysical process not yet understood. Astronomers estimate the average FRB rel ...

Overview

These stars, if they exist, are thought to start from a

with a mass that would cause it to collapse into a

if it were not rapidly spinning. Instead, the neutron star spins fast enough so that its

centrifugal force In Newtonian mechanics, the centrifugal force is an inertial force (also called a "fictitious" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It is directed away from an axis which is paralle ...

overcomes gravity. This makes the neutron star a typical but doomed

whose strong

magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...

radiates energy away and slows its spin. Eventually the weakening centrifugal force is no longer able to halt the pulsar from collapsing into a black hole. At that moment, part of the pulsar's magnetic field outside the black hole is suddenly cut off from its vanished source. This magnetic energy is instantly transformed into a burst of wide spectrum radio energy. As of January 2015, seven radio events detected so far might represent such possible collapses; they are projected to occur every 10 seconds within the observable universe. Because the magnetic field had previously cleared the surrounding space of gas and dust, there is no nearby material that will fall into the new black hole. Thus there is no burst of

X-rays An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 Picometre, picometers to 10 Nanometre, nanometers, corresponding to frequency, ...

gamma rays A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically ...

that usually happens when other black holes form. If blitzars exist, they may offer a new way to observe details of black hole formation.

References

{{Neutron star Hypothetical stars Neutron stars Black holes