Gauge dependence and self-force from Galilean to Einsteinian free fall, compact stars falling into black holes, Hawking radiation and the Pisa tower at the general relativity centennial

TL;DR

This paper explores the evolution of free fall concepts from Galilean physics to general relativity and quantum mechanics, analyzing gauge dependence, self-force effects, and implications for black holes and educational practices.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of free fall across different physical theories, highlighting gauge issues, self-force effects, and the impact of Hawking radiation on black hole physics.

Findings

Galilean free fall neglects mass, but this is an approximation.

Coordinate choice affects geodesic free fall in general relativity.

Hawking radiation influences black hole mass and energy during free fall.

Abstract

(Short abstract). In Galilean physics, the universality of free fall implies an inertial frame, which in turns implies that the mass m of the falling body is omitted. Otherwise, an additional acceleration proportional to m/M would rise either for an observer at the centre of mass of the system, or for an observer at a fixed distance from the centre of mass of M. These elementary, but overlooked, considerations fully respect the equivalence principle and the identity of an inertial or a gravitational pull for an observer in the Einstein cabin. They value as fore-runners of the self-force and gauge dependency in general relativity. The approximate nature of Galilei's law of free fall is explored herein. When stepping into general relativity, we report how the geodesic free fall into a black hole was the subject of an intense debate again centred on coordinate choice. Later, we describe how the infalling mass and the emitted gravitational radiation affect the free fall motion of a body. The general relativistic self-force might be dealt with to perfectly fit into a geodesic conception of motion. Then, embracing quantum mechanics, real black holes are not classical static objects any longer. Free fall has to handle the Hawking radiation, and leads us to new perspectives on the varying mass of the evaporating black hole and on the varying energy of the falling mass. Along the paper, we also estimate our findings for ordinary masses being dropped from a Galilean or Einsteinian Pisa-like tower with respect to the current state of the art drawn from precise measurements in ground and space laboratories, and to the constraints posed by quantum measurements. The appendix describes how education physics and high impact factor journals discuss the free fall. Finally, case studies conducted on undergraduate students and teachers are reviewed.