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The Schwarzschild radius (sometimes historically referred to as the gravitational radius) is a physical parameter that appears in the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein's field equations, corresponding to the radius defining the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. It is a characteristic radius associated with any quantity of mass. The Schwarzschild radius was named after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who calculated this exact solution for the theory of general relativity in 1916.

The Schwarzschild radius is given as

${\displaystyle r_{s}={\frac {2GM}{c^{2}}},}$

where G is the gravitational constant, M is the object mass, and c is the speed of light. In natural units, the gravitational constant and the speed of light are both taken to be unity, so the Schwarszchild radius is ${\displaystyle r_{s}=2M}$.

History

In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild obtained the exact solution to Einstein's field equations for the gravitational field outside a non-rotating, spherically symmetric body with mass ${\displaystyle M}$ (see Schwarzschild metric). The solution contained terms of the form ${\displaystyle 1-{r_{s}}/r}$ and ${\displaystyle {\frac {1}{1-{r_{s}}/r}}}$, which become singular at ${\displaystyle r=0}$ and ${\displaystyle r=r_{s}}$ respectively. The ${\displaystyle r_{s}}$ has come to be known as the Schwarzschild radius. The physical significance of these singularities was debated for decades. It was found that the one at ${\displaystyle r=r_{s}}$ is a coordinate singularity, meaning that it is an artifact of the particular system of coordinates that were used; while the one at ${\displaystyle r=0}$ is physical, and cannot be removed. The Schwarzschild radius is nonetheless a physically relevant quantity, as noted above and below.

This expression had previously been calculated, using Newtonian mechanics, as the radius of a spherically symmetric body at which the escape velocity was equal to the speed of light. It had been identified in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace.

Parameters

The Schwarzschild radius of an object is proportional to the mass. Accordingly, the Sun has a Schwarzschild radius of approximately 3.0 km (1.9 mi), whereas Earth's is only about 9 mm (0.35 in) and the Moon's is about 0.1 mm (0.0039 in). The observable universe's mass has a Schwarzschild radius of approximately 13.7 billion light-years.

Object	Mass, ${\textstyle M}$	Schwarzschild radius, ${\textstyle {\frac {2GM}{c^{2}}}}$	Actual radius, ${\textstyle r}$	Schwarzschild density, ${\textstyle {\frac {3c^{6}}{32\pi G^{3}M^{2}}}}$ or ${\textstyle {\frac {3c^{2}}{8\pi Gr^{2}}}}$
Observable universe	8.8×10 kg	1.3×10 m (13.7 billion ly)	4.4×10 m (46.5 billion ly)	9.5×10 kg/m
Milky Way	1.6×10 kg	2.4×10 m (0.25 ly)	5×10 m (52.9 thousand ly)	0.000029 kg/m
TON 618 (largest known black hole)	1.3×10 kg	1.9×10 m (~1300 AU)		0.0045 kg/m
SMBH in NGC 4889	4.2×10 kg	6.2×10 m		0.042 kg/m
SMBH in Messier 87	1.3×10 kg	1.9×10 m		0.44 kg/m
SMBH in Andromeda Galaxy	3.4×10 kg	5.0×10 m		640 kg/m
Sagittarius A* (SMBH in Milky Way)	8.2×10 kg	1.2×10 m		1.1×10 kg/m
Sun	1.99×10 kg	2.95×10 m	7.0×10 m	1.84×10 kg/m
Jupiter	1.90×10 kg	2.82 m	7.0×10 m	2.02×10 kg/m
Earth	5.97×10 kg	8.87×10 m	6.37×10 m	2.04×10 kg/m
Moon	7.35×10 kg	1.09×10 m	1.74×10 m	1.35×10 kg/m
Saturn	5.683×10 kg	8.42×10 m	6.03×10 m	2.27×10 kg/m
Uranus	8.681×10 kg	1.29×10 m	2.56×10 m	9.68×10 kg/m
Neptune	1.024×10 kg	1.52×10 m	2.47×10 m	6.97×10 kg/m
Mercury	3.285×10 kg	4.87×10 m	2.44×10 m	6.79×10 kg/m
Venus	4.867×10 kg	7.21×10 m	6.05×10 m	3.10×10 kg/m
Mars	6.39×10 kg	9.47×10 m	3.39×10 m	1.80×10 kg/m
Human	70 kg	1.04×10 m	~5×10 m	1.49×10 kg/m
Planck mass	2.18×10 kg	3.23×10 m	(twice the Planck length)	1.54×10 kg/m

Derivation

Black hole classification by Schwarzschild radius

Any object whose radius is smaller than its Schwarzschild radius is called a black hole. The surface at the Schwarzschild radius acts as an event horizon in a non-rotating body (a rotating black hole operates slightly differently). Neither light nor particles can escape through this surface from the region inside, hence the name "black hole".

Black holes can be classified based on their Schwarzschild radius, or equivalently, by their density, where density is defined as mass of a black hole divided by the volume of its Schwarzschild sphere. As the Schwarzschild radius is linearly related to mass, while the enclosed volume corresponds to the third power of the radius, small black holes are therefore much more dense than large ones. The volume enclosed in the event horizon of the most massive black holes has an average density lower than main sequence stars.

Supermassive black hole

A supermassive black hole (SMBH) is the largest type of black hole, though there are few official criteria on how such an object is considered so, on the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. (Supermassive black holes up to 21 billion (2.1 × 10) M_☉ have been detected, such as NGC 4889.) Unlike stellar mass black holes, supermassive black holes have comparatively low average densities. (Note that a (non-rotating) black hole is a spherical region in space that surrounds the singularity at its center; it is not the singularity itself.) With that in mind, the average density of a supermassive black hole can be less than the density of water.

The Schwarzschild radius of a body is proportional to its mass and therefore to its volume, assuming that the body has a constant mass-density. In contrast, the physical radius of the body is proportional to the cube root of its volume. Therefore, as the body accumulates matter at a given fixed density (in this example, 997 kg/m, the density of water), its Schwarzschild radius will increase more quickly than its physical radius. When a body of this density has grown to around 136 million solar masses (1.36 × 10) M_☉, its physical radius would be overtaken by its Schwarzschild radius, and thus it would form a supermassive black hole.

It is thought that supermassive black holes like these do not form immediately from the singular collapse of a cluster of stars. Instead they may begin life as smaller, stellar-sized black holes and grow larger by the accretion of matter, or even of other black holes.

The Schwarzschild radius of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center is approximately 12 million kilometres.

Stellar black hole

Stellar black holes have much greater average densities than supermassive black holes. If one accumulates matter at nuclear density (the density of the nucleus of an atom, about 10 kg/m; neutron stars also reach this density), such an accumulation would fall within its own Schwarzschild radius at about 3 M_☉ and thus would be a stellar black hole.

Primordial black hole

A small mass has an extremely small Schwarzschild radius. A mass similar to Mount Everest has a Schwarzschild radius much smaller than a nanometre. Its average density at that size would be so high that no known mechanism could form such extremely compact objects. Such black holes might possibly be formed in an early stage of the evolution of the universe, just after the Big Bang, when densities were extremely high. Therefore, these hypothetical miniature black holes are called primordial black holes.

Other uses

In gravitational time dilation

Gravitational time dilation near a large, slowly rotating, nearly spherical body, such as the Earth or Sun can be reasonably as follows:

${\displaystyle {\frac {t_{r}}{t}}={\sqrt {1-{\frac {r_{\mathrm {s} }}{r}}}}}$

where:

t_r is the elapsed time for an observer at radial coordinate r within the gravitational field;

t is the elapsed time for an observer distant from the massive object (and therefore outside of the gravitational field);

r is the radial coordinate of the observer (which is analogous to the classical distance from the center of the object);

r_s is the Schwarzschild radius.

Schwarzschild radius for Planck mass

For the Planck mass ${\displaystyle m_{\rm {P}}={\sqrt {\hbar c/G}}}$, the Schwarzschild radius ${\displaystyle r_{\rm {S}}=2\ell _{\rm {P}}}$ and the Compton wavelength ${\displaystyle \lambda _{\rm {C}}=2\pi \ell _{\rm {P}}}$ are of the same order as the Planck length ${\displaystyle \ell _{\rm {P}}={\sqrt {\hbar G/c^{3}}}}$.

Planck length formula of Schwarzschild radius

Without loss of generality, by expressing black hole mass as ${\displaystyle M\equiv {m}{m_{\text{P}}}}$, where ${\displaystyle m\in \mathbb {R} }$ and ${\displaystyle m_{\text{P}}}$ is Planck mass, this radius becomes

${\displaystyle r_{s}={\frac {2Gm{m_{\text{P}}}}{c^{2}}}={\frac {2Gm}{c^{2}}}{\sqrt {\frac {\hbar c}{G}}}=2ml_{\text{P}}}$,

where ${\displaystyle l_{\text{P}}}$is Planck length.

See also

• Black hole, a general survey
• Chandrasekhar limit, a second requirement for black hole formation
• John Michell

Classification of black holes by type:

• Static or Schwarzschild black hole
• Rotating or Kerr black hole
• Charged black hole or Newman black hole and Kerr-Newman black hole

A classification of black holes by mass:

• Micro black hole and extra-dimensional black hole
• Planck length
• Primordial black hole, a hypothetical leftover of the Big Bang
• Stellar black hole, which could either be a static black hole or a rotating black hole
• Supermassive black hole, which could also either be a static black hole or a rotating black hole
• Visible universe, if its density is the critical density, as a hypothetical black hole
• Virtual black hole

Notes

1. Using these values, one can calculate a mass estimate of 6.3715e14 kg.
2. One can calculate the Schwarzschild radius: 2 × 6.6738e-11 m kg s × 6.3715e14 kg / (299 792 458 m s) = 9.46e-13 m, or 9.46e-4 nm.

References

1. Kutner, Marc (2003). Astronomy: A Physical Perspective. Cambridge University Press. p. 148. ISBN 9780521529273.
2. Guidry, Mike (2019-01-03). Modern General Relativity: Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Cosmology. Cambridge University Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-107-19789-3.
3. K. Schwarzschild, "Über das Gravitationsfeld eines Massenpunktes nach der Einsteinschen Theorie", Sitzungsberichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Klasse fur Mathematik, Physik, und Technik (1916) pp 189.
4. K. Schwarzschild, "Über das Gravitationsfeld einer Kugel aus inkompressibler Flussigkeit nach der Einsteinschen Theorie", Sitzungsberichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Klasse fur Mathematik, Physik, und Technik (1916) pp 424.
5. Wald, Robert (1984). General Relativity. The University of Chicago Press. pp. 152–153. ISBN 978-0-226-87033-5.
6. Schaffer, Simon (1979). "John Michell and Black Holes". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 10: 42–43. Bibcode:1979JHA....10...42S. doi:10.1177/002182867901000104. S2CID 123958527. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
7. Colin Montgomery, Wayne Orchiston and Ian Whittingham, "Michell, Laplace and the origin of the Black Hole Concept", Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 12(2), 90–96 (2009).
8. Deza, Michel Marie; Deza, Elena (Oct 28, 2012). Encyclopedia of Distances (2nd ed.). Heidelberg: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 452. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-30958-8. ISBN 978-3-642-30958-8. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
9. Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (2019). "First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole". Astrophysical Journal Letters. 875 (1): L1. arXiv:1906.11238. Bibcode:2019ApJ...875L...1E. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/AB0EC7. 6.5(7) × 10 M_☉ = 1.29(14)×10 kg.
10. Bender, Ralf; Kormendy, John; Bower, Gary; et al. (2005). "HST STIS Spectroscopy of the Triple Nucleus of M31: Two Nested Disks in Keplerian Rotation around a Supermassive Black Hole". Astrophysical Journal. 631 (1): 280–300. arXiv:astro-ph/0509839. Bibcode:2005ApJ...631..280B. doi:10.1086/432434. S2CID 53415285. 1.7(6) × 10 M_☉ = 0.34(12)×10 kg.
11. McConnell, Nicholas J. (2011-12-08). "Two ten-billion-solar-mass black holes at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies". Nature. 480 (7376): 215–218. arXiv:1112.1078. Bibcode:2011Natur.480..215M. doi:10.1038/nature10636. PMID 22158244. S2CID 4408896.
12. Robert H. Sanders (2013). Revealing the Heart of the Galaxy: The Milky Way and its Black Hole. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-107-51274-0.
13. Ghez, A. M.; et al. (December 2008). "Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way's Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits". Astrophysical Journal. 689 (2): 1044–1062. arXiv:0808.2870. Bibcode:2008ApJ...689.1044G. doi:10.1086/592738. S2CID 18335611.
14. ^ "How does the mass of one mole of M&M's compare to the mass of Mount Everest?" (PDF). School of Science and Technology, Singapore. March 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 December 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2014. If Mount Everest is assumed* to be a cone of height 8850 m and radius 5000 m, then its volume can be calculated using the following equation:
    volume = πrh/3 Mount Everest is composed of granite, which has a density of 2750 kg m.
15. Keeton, Keeton (2014). Principles of Astrophysics: Using Gravity and Stellar Physics to Explore the Cosmos (illustrated ed.). Springer. p. 208. ISBN 978-1-4614-9236-8. Extract of page 208

v t e Black holes
Outline
Types	BTZ black hole Schwarzschild Rotating Charged Virtual Kugelblitz Supermassive Primordial Direct collapse Rogue Malament–Hogarth spacetime
Size	Micro Extremal Electron Stellar Microquasar Intermediate-mass Supermassive Active galactic nucleus Quasar LQG Blazar OVV
Formation	Stellar evolution Gravitational collapse Neutron star Related links Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit White dwarf Related links Supernova Micronova Hypernova Related links Gamma-ray burst Binary black hole Quark star Supermassive star Quasi-star Supermassive dark star X-ray binary
Properties	Astrophysical jet Gravitational singularity Ring singularity Theorems Event horizon Photon sphere Innermost stable circular orbit Ergosphere Penrose process Blandford–Znajek process Accretion disk Hawking radiation Gravitational lens Microlens Bondi accretion M–sigma relation Quasi-periodic oscillation Thermodynamics Bekenstein bound Bousso's holographic bound Immirzi parameter Schwarzschild radius Spaghettification
Issues	Black hole complementarity Information paradox Cosmic censorship ER = EPR Final parsec problem Firewall (physics) Holographic principle No-hair theorem
Metrics	Schwarzschild (Derivation) Kerr Reissner–Nordström Kerr–Newman Hayward
Alternatives	Nonsingular black hole models Black star Dark star Dark-energy star Gravastar Magnetospheric eternally collapsing object Planck star Q star Fuzzball Geon
Analogs	Optical black hole Sonic black hole
Lists	Black holes Most massive Nearest Quasars Microquasars
Related	Outline of black holes Black Hole Initiative Black hole starship Black holes in fiction Big Bang Big Bounce Compact star Exotic star Quark star Preon star Gravitational waves Gamma-ray burst progenitors Gravity well Hypercompact stellar system Membrane paradigm Naked singularity Population III star Supermassive star Quasi-star Supermassive dark star Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Superluminal motion Timeline of black hole physics White hole Wormhole Tidal disruption event Planet Nine
Notable	Cygnus X-1 XTE J1650-500 XTE J1118+480 A0620-00 Sagittarius A* Centaurus A Phoenix Cluster PKS 1302-102 OJ 287 SDSS J0849+1114 TON 618 MS 0735.6+7421 NeVe 1 Hercules A 3C 273 Q0906+6930 Markarian 501 ULAS J1342+0928 PSO J030947.49+271757.31 AT2018hyz Swift J1644+57 1ES 1927+654
Category [REDACTED] Commons

• Black holes
• 1916 in science