Speculation on the nature of collapsed stellar cores

[kwright]

Neutron stars formed from supernova events are prohibited from becoming black holes because it is thought that the gravitational force is not enough to overcome Fermi degeneracy of the neutrons or quark gluon soup at the core of these objects, however, addition of more mass can overcome this repulsion and form a black hole. My question is are black hole "cores" not singularities but instead massive bosons formed by the gravitational effects forcing quarks into a singular microstate similar to the formation of Cooper pairs.

I've found a thesis document that discusses the exact line of thought I've been pursuing, remarkable to me because until tonight I had not heard of color superconductivity although I have a layman's understanding of both quantum chromodynamics and superconductivity, which led to my initial question due to my curiosity about absolute zero.

http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/16936/53103752.pdf?sequence=1

In the QCD theory quarks come in different flavors and / or colors, for instance, the neutron is composed of 1 up quark ( a type of flavor) and two down quarks. In the case of cold ultra dense neutron star matter the quarks can break color charge confinement which involves the gluons (strong force) that bind quarks to one another. Similar to low temperature superconductor theories, the quarks can aline in Cooper pairs, essentially becoming bosons from the pairing of fermions. By not obeying the Pauli exclusion principle the quarks may superimpose themselves Cooper pair by Cooper pair. My original question asked if the singularity formed by, say, two neutrons stars merging into a black hole could in fact be a massive boson formed by matter condensed sufficiently by gravity as to have just one microstate at a temperature of absolute zero.
Also it has been found that pairs of top quarks can combine to form Higgs bosons through a mechanism involving gluons. The quark gluon soup imagined to exist within neutron stars should provide a target rich environment due to the breaking of color confinement of the quarks as well as the chiral symmetry breaking due to the Higgs field, a condensate whose carrier is a scalar boson.

It has been theorized that in certain situations gravity was as strong as the other fundamental forces, such as the big bang / early universe setting, perhaps the same scenario exists at the core of collapsed stars. The case of 2 neutron stars forming a black hole with a singularity at the center is reminiscent of two fermions forming a Cooper pair (massive boson) that doesn't require a singularity. I hypothesize that an object that has reached the Planck mass must become a boson in the relativistic conditions at the heart of a black hole and not a singularity. Consequently, the singularity at the beginning of the big bang should also be a boson. I can't prove any of this, I just hate singularities. :)

The problem I have with physical singularities is rather simple. I don't believe there are infinities in nature, but when these infinities showed up in the formulation of QED they were renormalized with empirical data to fit what nature actually revealed. Should a theory arise that actually renormalizes the singularity similar to the renormalizing of the properties of electrons I think it would go far in explaining other phenomena such as dark energy ,big bang zero and the true nature of superconductivity as well as black holes. Mathematical singularities are probably ok as long as they are not used to describe infinities within the scope of what occurs naturally, it's sounds a little like killing a mosquito with a thermonuclear device.
I guess what I'm asking is the following; 1) Is gravitation strong enough to overcome quantum fluctuations of the material (fermions) present at a neutron star core as it proceeds with additional mass to the transition from a neutron star towards full gravitational collapse and 2) would such material be compacted to the extent that there are no "degrees of freedom" essentially forcing fermions to exhibit bosonic character with a microstate of one at zero degrees Kelvin at the "core" thus avoiding singularity while preserving baryon number as well as mass - energy conservation? Present knowledge would suggest the short answer of no, I just want to know why. Respectfully, Keith Wright.Show less

 

[Simon Bridge]

Welcome to PF;
Please note that speculation and personal theories are usually unwelcome here... still...

Neutron stars formed from supernova events are prohibited from becoming black holes because it is thought that the gravitational force is not enough to overcome Fermi degeneracy of the neutrons or quark gluon soup at the core of these objects, however, addition of more mass can overcome this repulsion and form a black hole. My question is are black hole "cores" not singularities but instead massive bosons formed by the gravitational effects forcing quarks into a singular microstate similar to the formation of Cooper pairs.

Short answer - nobody knows.
The "singularity" refers to the maths.
However, there is no known mechanism that would produce the "cooper pair" effect that would also oppose prevent the further collapse of pairs into each other.

It reads to me like the thesis suggests a transitional state that matter may pass thorugh on t's way to being a black hole.

Also it has been found that pairs of top quarks can combine to form Higgs bosons through a mechanism involving gluons.

This needs a citation.

It has been theorized...

Where? Who by?

I just hate singularities.

You are not the only one - the singularity in the maths is usually considered to be a sign that our understanding of the physics here is incomplete.
We can use it because the singularity does not affect anything outside the event horizon.

The problem I have with physical singularities is rather simple. I don't believe...

... unfortunately Nature is indifferent to our personal beliefs.

... there are infinities in nature, but when these infinities showed up in the formulation of QED they were renormalized with empirical data to fit what nature actually revealed.

i.e. for the self-energy of the electron. The "infinities" involved were the number of possible interactions that needed to be taken into account, not the end result of the calculation.
The "renormalization" was proposed, initially, as a shortcut ... hoping that the maths does actually converge even though nobody knew how to actually carry out the sum.

The singularity in GR is quite a different sort of thing - it is a clearly divergent limit in the final result, and it agrees with what we can tell about Nature so far.

There are different kinds of infinities.

 

[kwright]

Please forgive me for asking my questions in the form of speculation, it was done merely to properly frame the question. I apologize nevertheless to Physics Forum as well as anyone who might have been offended by my comments.
Among the wide variety of papers and lectures describing Higgs boson formation from top quark - antitop quark fusion via gluon fusion I submit the following:

http://www.nikhef.nl/pub/services/biblio/preprints/05-007.pdf.
Thank you, Simon Bridge, for your respone.

 

[kwright]

I might also throw in an interesting, sometimes amusing lecture on the Higgs by the distinguished theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind regarding Higgs boson creation. (58:00 is extremely interesting and relevant to my question):

You might ask what this has to do with GR. I am trying to understand how matter behaves under the immense gravitation present in a collapsed stellar core and the effects of the interactions between spacetime, fermions and bosons in such an extreme environment.
Again, thanks.

 

[Simon Bridge]

The main trouble with this topic is that we do not have the physics for what happens inside the event horizon.
There are additional related issues around who is doing the observing.

So it is highly speculative fringe stuff in nature - which makes it tricky to talk about.

The usual approach in GR is something like:
http://www.jimhaldenwang.com/black_hole.htm

You have already revealed a "laymans understanding" of quarks and color-charge ... what is your general education level?

Please understand: the prohibition on some topics in PF is not a matter of offence exactly - just practicality.
Please see the posting guidelines if you have not already.

 

[kwright]

As a matter of principle I don't present personal data on forums. I would add to the suggested bibliography " Flat and Curved Spacetimes" by G.F.R. Ellis et al. which I found helpful as an introductory text in my days as an undergraduate.

 

[Dale]

Please note that speculation and personal theories are usually unwelcome here... still..

This is true, but the topic has a valid mainstream scientific reference. As long as we stick to the topics in the cited dissertation and don't propose new or alternative speculation then discussion of the dissertation should be fine.

 

[Dale]

It has been theorized that in certain situations gravity was as strong as the other fundamental forces, such as the big bang / early universe setting, perhaps the same scenario exists at the core of collapsed stars. The case of 2 neutron stars forming a black hole with a singularity at the center is reminiscent of two fermions forming a Cooper pair (massive boson) that doesn't require a singularity.

From a cursory reading of the dissertation there is no support for this analogy and also no claim that the color Cooper pairing would prevent formation of a singularity. The goal seemed to be simply to propose an explanation for "glitches" in the rotation of degenerate stars.

I can't prove any of this, I just hate singularities. :)

The problem I have with physical singularities is rather simple. I don't believe there are infinities in nature,

You are in good company there. But I think that in order to remove the singularities in black holes will require a complete quantum theory of gravity, not merely color Cooper pairs.

 

[kwright]

Thank you, DaleSpam, I shall endeavor to study more on this subject which, as Simon Bridge inferred in his post, is really on the fringe area of modern physics with many unknowns (there be dragons out there!).

 

[kwright]

Thank you, DaleSpam, I shall endeavor to study more on this subject which, as Simon Bridge inferred in his post, is really on the fringe area of modern physics with many unknowns (there be dragons out there!).

Question: If the Hawking radiation outward flux prevents the formation of singularities such that the core collapses to a fixed radius, what prevents the matter contained in such a collapsed core from being color Cooper pairs of fermionic material having bosonic character at a singular microstate, and, due to evaporation of the black hole, could such a composite massive boson indeed explode as a result of the conservation of mass/energy instead of suffering further collape? I posit the following pdf: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.1837v1.pdf

 

[PeterDonis]

we do not have the physics for what happens inside the event horizon

I think this is too strong. We can certainly apply GR inside the horizon; from a purely classical viewpoint this works fine right up to the singularity. What we don't know is how quantum effects change things. I think a better way of describing the situation would be "our knowledge of physics inside the horizon is incomplete".

 

[kwright]

I think this is too strong. We can certainly apply GR inside the horizon; from a purely classical viewpoint this works fine right up to the singularity. What we don't know is how quantum effects change things. I think a better way of describing the situation would be "our knowledge of physics inside the horizon is incomplete".

I
I think the two cited documents in this post attempt to explain or expand our knowledge of physics inside the horizon using well understood first principals without the need for exotic mathematical anomalies such as singularities. I think there is a connection between the concept of color superconductivity in neutron stars, Hawking Radiation effects in collapsed stellar cores (perhaps not just black holes but also neutron or quark stars?) and GR as well as an explanation as to what happened at Big Bang Zero and previously (maybe dark energy and dark matter existed BEFORE the Big Bang if there were no singularities in the beginning of this particular deSitter universe). I will defer the rest of my thoughts to perhaps the cosmology section so as to avoid further speculation on my part regarding GR, thanks to all!

 

[PeterDonis]

I think the two cited documents in this post attempt to explain or expand our knowledge of physics inside the horizon

The objects being dealt with in the first document (the MIT thesis) are not black holes, and do not have horizons. They are stable objects similar to white dwarfs or neutron stars, but with more exotic states of matter inside them. There is no treatment of what happens if an object like this has a mass greater than the maximum mass possible for such a stable configuration, and starts collapsing. There is no treatment of physics inside a horizon.

The arxiv paper (Mersini-Houghton & Pfeiffer) does deal with gravitational collapse, but the process it postulates stops gravitational collapse before a horizon is formed; the collapsing object "bounces" before it ever becomes a black hole. So there is also no treatment here of physics inside a horizon.

 

[PeterDonis]

If the Hawking radiation outward flux prevents the formation of singularities such that the core collapses to a fixed radius

It doesn't; the collapsing object "bounces" and expands again, according to the (postulated) process described in the arxiv paper. (The paper also gives no details about the state of the matter that collapses and then bounces. I don't see why it couldn't be in a color Cooper pair state, but I don't see what difference that would make either.)

 

[kwright]

It doesn't; the collapsing object "bounces" and expands again, according to the (postulated) process described in the arxiv paper. (The paper also gives no details about the state of the matter that collapses and then bounces. I don't see why it couldn't be in a color Cooper pair state, but I don't see what difference that would make either.)

Thank you so much for the quick response, PeterDonis! If the job of a science advisor is to inform and correct I think I am fortunate to be enlightened by your response for I stand both corrected and informed. kwright.

 

[PeterDonis]

kwright, you're welcome, glad I could help!