Physics of Compact Objects

Black holes cannot possibly exist for 2 simple reasons: 1) Quantum mechanics does not allow information to be destroyed 2) Black hole space-times do not possess a universal time. What remains for the astrophysics community to discover is not whether black holes exist, but what are the tell-tale phenomena that shed light on the exact physical nature of objects lying inside their gravitational radius. In this talk I will suggest several kinds of observations that have the potential for revealing the nature of such objects. I will also discuss the importance of such observations for the overall progress of theoretical physics.

Speaker: George Chapline (Lawrence Livermore National Labs)