Gravitational collapse is the inward fall of a body due to the influence of its own gravity. In any stable body, this gravitational force is counterbalanced by the internal pressure of the body, in the opposite direction to the force of gravity (gravity being generally orientated to the center of mass). If the inwards pointing gravitational force, however, is stronger than the total combination of the outward pointing forces, the equilibrium becomes unbalanced and a collapse occurs until the internal pressure increases above that of the gravitational force and a equilibrium is once again attained (the exception being black holes).

Because gravity is comparatively weak compared to other fundamental forces, gravitational collapse is usually associated with very massive bodies or collections of bodies, such as star

Star

A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...

s (including collapsed stars such as supernovae

Type II supernova

A Type II supernova results from the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star. A star must have at least 9 times, and no more than 40–50 times the mass of the Sun for this type of explosion. It is distinguished from other types of supernova by the presence of hydrogen in its spectrum...

, neutron star

Neutron star

A neutron star is a type of stellar remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles without electrical charge and with a slightly larger...

s and black hole

Black hole

A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...

s) and massive collections of stars such as globular cluster

Globular cluster

A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. The name of this category of star cluster is...

s and galaxies

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

.

Gravitational collapse is at the heart of structure formation in the universe. An initial smooth distribution of matter will eventually collapse and cause a hierarchy of structures, such as clusters of galaxies

Galaxy formation and evolution

The study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have generated the variety of structures observed in nearby...

, stellar groups, stars

Star formation

Star formation is the process by which dense parts of molecular clouds collapse into a ball of plasma to form a star. As a branch of astronomy star formation includes the study of the interstellar medium and giant molecular clouds as precursors to the star formation process and the study of young...

 and planets. For example, a star is born through the gradual gravitational collapse of a cloud of interstellar matter. The compression caused by the collapse raises the temperature until nuclear fuel reignites in the center of the star and the collapse comes to a halt. The thermal pressure gradient (leading to expansion) compensates the gravity (leading to compression) and a star is in dynamical equilibrium between these two forces.

Gravitational collapse of a star

Stellar evolution

Stellar evolution is the process by which a star undergoes a sequence of radical changes during its lifetime. Depending on the mass of the star, this lifetime ranges from only a few million years to trillions of years .Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single...

 occurs at the end of its lifetime, also called the death

Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

 of the star. When all stellar energy sources are exhausted, the star will undergo a gravitational collapse. In this sense a star is in a "temporary" equilibrium state between a gravitational collapse at stellar birth and a further gravitational collapse at stellar death. The end states are called compact star

Compact star

In astronomy, the term compact star is used to refer collectively to white dwarfs, neutron stars, other exotic dense stars, and black holes. These objects are all small for their mass...

s.

The types of compact stars are:

• White dwarf
  White dwarf
  A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. They are very dense; a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth. Its faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored...
  
  s, in which gravity is opposed by electron degeneracy pressure
  Electron degeneracy pressure
  Electron degeneracy pressure is a particular manifestation of the more general phenomenon of quantum degeneracy pressure. The Pauli Exclusion Principle disallows two half integer spin particles from occupying the same quantum state at a given time. The resulting emergent repulsive force is...
  
  ;
• Neutron star
  Neutron star
  A neutron star is a type of stellar remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles without electrical charge and with a slightly larger...
  
  s, in which gravity is opposed by neutron degeneracy pressure and short-range repulsive neutron–neutron interactions mediated by the strong force
  Strong interaction
  In particle physics, the strong interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature, the others being electromagnetism, the weak interaction and gravitation. As with the other fundamental interactions, it is a non-contact force...
  
  ;
• Black hole
  Black hole
  A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
  
  s, in which the physics at the center is unknown.

The collapse to a white dwarf takes place over tens of thousands of years, while the star blows off its outer envelope to form a planetary nebula

Planetary nebula

A planetary nebula is an emission nebula consisting of an expanding glowing shell of ionized gas ejected during the asymptotic giant branch phase of certain types of stars late in their life...

. If it has a companion star

Binary star

A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...

, a white dwarf-sized object can accrete

Accretion (astrophysics)

In astrophysics, the term accretion is used for at least two distinct processes.The first and most common is the growth of a massive object by gravitationally attracting more matter, typically gaseous matter in an accretion disc. Accretion discs are common around smaller stars or stellar remnants...

 matter from a companion star until it reaches the Chandrasekhar limit

Chandrasekhar limit

When a star starts running out of fuel, it usually cools off and collapses into one of three compact forms, depending on its total mass:* a White Dwarf, a big lump of Carbon and Oxygen atoms, almost like one huge molecule...

, at which point gravitational collapse takes over again. While it might seem that the white dwarf might collapse to the next stage (neutron star), they instead undergo runaway

Thermal runaway

Thermal runaway refers to a situation where an increase in temperature changes the conditions in a way that causes a further increase in temperature, often leading to a destructive result...

 carbon fusion

Carbon detonation

Carbon detonation is the violent re-ignition of thermonuclear fusion in a dead star, which produces a Type Ia supernova. A white dwarf undergoes carbon detonation only if it has a normal binary companion which is close enough to the dwarf star to dump sufficient amounts of matter onto the dwarf,...

, blowing completely apart in a Type Ia supernova

Type Ia supernova

A Type Ia supernova is a sub-category of supernovae, which in turn are a sub-category of cataclysmic variable stars, that results from the violent explosion of a white dwarf star. A white dwarf is the remnant of a star that has completed its normal life cycle and has ceased nuclear fusion...

. Neutron stars are formed by gravitational collapse of larger stars, the remnant of other types of supernova

Type II supernova

A Type II supernova results from the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star. A star must have at least 9 times, and no more than 40–50 times the mass of the Sun for this type of explosion. It is distinguished from other types of supernova by the presence of hydrogen in its spectrum...

.

Even more massive stars, above the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit cannot find a new dynamical equilibrium with any known force opposing gravity. Hence, the collapse continues with nothing to stop it. Once it collapses to within its Schwarzschild radius

Schwarzschild radius

The Schwarzschild radius is the distance from the center of an object such that, if all the mass of the object were compressed within that sphere, the escape speed from the surface would equal the speed of light...

, not even light can escape from the star, and hence it becomes a black hole

Black hole

A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...

. According to theories, at some point later the collapsing object will reach the maximum possible energy density for a certain volume of space or the Planck density (as there is nothing that can stop it), where the known laws of gravity cease to be valid. There are competing theories as to what occurs at this point, but it can no longer really be considered gravitational collapse at that stage.

It might be thought that a sufficiently large neutron star could exist inside its Schwarzschild radius

Schwarzschild radius

The Schwarzschild radius is the distance from the center of an object such that, if all the mass of the object were compressed within that sphere, the escape speed from the surface would equal the speed of light...

 and appear like a black hole without having all the mass compressed to a singularity

Gravitational singularity

A gravitational singularity or spacetime singularity is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system...

 at the center; however, this is a misconception. Within the event horizon, matter would have to move outwards faster than the speed of light in order to remain stable and avoid collapsing to the center. No physical force can therefore prevent the star from collapsing to a singularity (at least within the currently understood framework of general relativity

General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

; this doesn’t hold for the Einstein–Yang–Mills–Dirac system). A model for nonspherical collapse in general relativity with emission of matter and gravitational waves was presented in .

External links

• Gravitational collapse on arxiv.org