Hawking radiation

British  

noun

1. astronomy the emission of particles by a black hole. Pairs of virtual particles in the intense gravitational field around a black hole may live long enough for one to move outward when the other is pulled into the black hole, making it appear that the black hole is emitting radiation

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Hawking radiation Scientific  

1. A form of radiation believed to emanate from black holes, emerging from the region just beyond the black hole's event horizon (from which no radiation can emerge). Pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles, created naturally in the vacuum fluctuation near the black hole, are split apart, one particle falling into the black hole and the other radiating away. The energy lost to such radiated particles is believed to come from the mass of the black hole.

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Etymology

Origin of Hawking radiation

C20: discovered by Stephen _Hawking

Example Sentences

"As PBHs evaporate, they become ever lighter, and so hotter, emitting even more radiation in a runaway process until explosion. It's that Hawking radiation that our telescopes can detect."

From Science Daily • Apr. 8, 2026

If they become hot enough, they can emit particles through a process now known as Hawking radiation.

From Science Daily • Apr. 8, 2026

Curiously, while they ensure that the island is mapped onto the radiation, they do not generate a definite prediction for specific measurements of the Hawking radiation.

From Scientific American • Aug. 22, 2022

It turns out that they modify the answer of how much entanglement entropy there is between the black hole and its Hawking radiation.

From Scientific American • Aug. 22, 2022

This is the island formula for the entanglement entropy of the Hawking radiation.

From Scientific American • Aug. 22, 2022