Introduction to Black Hole Physics

Abstract

Introduction to Black Hole Physics is a large volume (504 pages), and yet despite this it is still really an introductory text. The book gives an introduction to general relativity, but most of the text is dedicated to attracting the reader's attention to the interesting world of black hole physics. In this sense, the book is very distinct from other textbooks on general relativity.We are told that it was based on the lectures given by Professor Frolov, one of the authors, over the last 30 years. One can obtain the basic ideas about black holes, and also the necessary tips to understand general relativity at a very basic level. For example, in the discussion about particle motion in curved space, the authors start with a brief review on analytical mechanics. The book does not require its readers to have a great deal of knowledge in advance. If you are familiar with such a basic subject, you can simply omit that section.The reason why I especially picked up on this topic as an example is that the book devotes a significant number of pages to geodesic motions in black hole spacetime. One of the main motivations to study black holes is related to how they will actually be observed, once we develop the ability to observe them clearly. The book does explain such discoveries as, for instance, how the motion of a particle is related to a beautiful mathematical structure arising from the hidden symmetry of spacetime, which became transparent via the recent progress in the exploration of black holes in higher dimensions; a concise introduction to this latest topic is deferred to Appendix D, so as not to distract the reader with its mathematical complexities.It should be also mentioned that the book is not limited to general relativistic aspects: quantum fields on a black hole background and Hawking radiation are also covered. Also included are current hot topics, for instance the gravitational waves from a system including black holes, whose first direct detection is expected in the near future. Such hot topics are presented in Section 10: 'Black Holes and All That Jazz'. I would also consider the historical overview of the research on black holes given in Section 1 to be very interesting. Overall, I strongly recognised the intention of the authors not to go into too much detail; in this sense, I would say that the book has the aspect of a showcase of the frontiers of black hole physics. There are many topics which are very interesting but mathematically a little complicated; however, those subjects are appropriately treated so that the reader will not be overloaded with mathematical complexity. For example, in the discussion of black hole perturbation, only scalar field perturbation is discussed. The authors might have discussed gravitational wave perturbation, but this is much more complicated and the essential physics is mostly included in the simplest example of the scalar field. If I were one of the authors, I would consider adding more detailed explanations about several such advanced topics. However, the authors well know that such a challenge just presents a barrier to young students who are going to read this book, and really it is only an introduction to this interesting research field.This style might be the result of the long experience from the lectures over 30 years: the explanations of the subjects that the authors describe in detail are very carefully presented, avoiding logical gaps. In the preface, the authors state that they tried hard to answer students' questions as much as possible; I think that the authors' method in this respect is very successful.