Gravitational Condensate Stars: An Alternative to Black Holes
Abstract
A new final endpoint of complete gravitational collapse is proposed. By extending the concept of Bose–Einstein condensation to gravitational systems, a static, spherically symmetric solution to Einstein's equations is obtained, characterized by an interior de Sitter region of p=‑ρ gravitational vacuum condensate and an exterior Schwarzschild geometry of arbitrary total mass M. These are separated by a phase boundary with a small but finite thickness ℓ, replacing both the Schwarzschild and de Sitter classical horizons. The resulting collapsed cold, compact object has no singularities, no event horizons, and a globally defined Killing time. Its entropy is maximized under small fluctuations and is given by the standard hydrodynamic entropy of the thin shell, which is of order kBℓMc/ℏ, instead of the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy, SBH=4πkBGM2/ℏc. Unlike BHs, a collapsed star of this kind is consistent with quantum theory, thermodynamically stable, and suffers from no information paradox.
- Publication:
-
Universe
- Pub Date:
- February 2023
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:gr-qc/0109035
- Bibcode:
- 2023Univ....9...88M
- Keywords:
-
- black holes;
- general relativity;
- gravitational collapse;
- information paradox;
- dark energy;
- cosmological constant;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;
- Astrophysics;
- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- Published, minimally corrected version of gr-qc/0109035, in which the original proposal that the final state of complete gravitational collapse is a non-singular gravitational vacuum condensate star (`gravastar') was made. Includes an extended Appendix, updating the status and developments of the proposal since 2001, under seven subheadings, with additional explanation and references.\