On Continued Gravitational Contraction

1939/09/01 by J. R. Oppenheimer, J. Robert Oppenheimer, H. Snyder +1 · 2 voices · 2,011 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitation #Gravitational collapse #Gravitational energy #Gravitational field #Gravitational redshift #Neutron star #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #RADIUS #Thermonuclear fusion

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrev.56.455

published in Physical Review 56(5), 455-459 (American Institute of Physics)

openalex publication_date 1939/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

When all thermonuclear sources of energy are exhausted a sufficiently heavy star will collapse. Unless fission due to rotation, the radiation of mass, or the blowing off of mass by radiation, reduce the star's mass to the order of that of the sun, this contraction will continue indefinitely. In the present paper we study the solutions of the gravitational field equations which describe this process. In I, general and qualitative arguments are given on the behavior of the metrical tensor as the contraction progresses: the radius of the star approaches asymptotically its gravitational radius; light from the surface of the star is progressively reddened, and can escape over a progressively narrower range of angles. In II, an analytic solution of the field equations confirming these general arguments is obtained for the case that the pressure within the star can be neglected. The total time of collapse for an observer comoving with the stellar matter is finite, and for this idealized case and typical stellar masses, of the order of a day; an external observer sees the star asymptotically shrinking to its gravitational radius.

Citations

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Discussions

• The "challenge" of Roy Kerr (repeating well-known and openly admitted caveats of the theorems, misinterpreting the maximal analytical extension of his own solution worked out by other people, and prov [stackexchange, 4 points]
• Einstein's GR implies black holes, but not the black hole singularity. The ample evidence for the formation of black holes with the continuum model, the Oppenheimer-Snyder collapse, On Continued Gravi [stackexchange, 0 points]

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