TL;DR
This paper refutes claims that astrophysical black holes do not exist and are actually 'black stars', clarifying misconceptions and discussing conceptual issues in relativistic astrophysics.
Contribution
It critically analyzes and disproves the recent claims denying the existence of black holes, reaffirming their status in astrophysics.
Findings
Black holes are consistent with relativistic physics.
Claims of 'black stars' lack scientific validity.
Conceptual difficulties in relativistic terminology are discussed.
Abstract
Recently wide publicity has been given to a claim by T. Vachaspati that "black holes do not exist", that the objects known as black holes in astrophysics should rather be called "black stars" and they not only do not have event horizons but actually can be the source of spectacular gamma ray bursts. In this short essay (no flimsier than the original preprint where these extravagant claims appeared) I demonstrate that these ill-considered claims are clearly wrong. Yet they present a good occasion to reflect on some well known but little discussed conceptual difficulties which arise when applying relativistic terminology in an astrophysical context.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.