A star runs out of fuel and rapidly collapses under its own gravity. According to classical ideas, it collapses into a point of infinite density — a singularity. But what if nature abhors infinities? In models of regular black holes, instead of a singularity, a dense core of unknown matter forms at the center. This matter did not exist in the star initially: it is born right during the collapse.
The authors traced how ordinary stellar matter transforms into a 'patch' for the singularity. They used the Dymnikova–Hayward–Bardeen model and calculated how much energy goes into radiation when new matter is born. It turns out that this process should produce a powerful flash of electromagnetic radiation — exactly like a gamma-ray burst.
But the most intriguing part is the comparison with observations. For the calculated flash to match real gamma-ray bursts, the 'patch' at the center must be very small. So small that from a distance, such a black hole is almost indistinguishable from an ordinary Schwarzschild one. Nature seems to hide its secrets behind nearly perfect camouflage. Thus, the birth of a regular black hole becomes a natural mechanism for gamma-ray bursts, while the holes themselves remain almost exactly as described by Karl Schwarzschild.
as written by the authors arXiv:2607.16590
During the gravitational collapse of a massive star into a regular black hole, a new form of matter must be produced in order to prevent the formation of a central singularity. Since such matter is not present in the initial stellar configuration, it must emerge dynamically during the collapse. This formation process is expected to be accompanied by a strong release of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which may be observable. Here we investigate the gravitational collapse of baryonic matter into Dymnikova-Hayward-Bardeen regular black holes. We estimate the radiation density and the corresponding bolometric luminosity generated by the formation of the matter sector responsible for singularity avoidance. We show that such processes provide a possible mechanism for gamma-ray bursts. Moreover, compatibility with gamma-ray burst requires small regularization effects. As a result, the corresponding regular black holes differ weakly from the Schwarzschild black hole.
The term 'black hole' was coined by journalist Ann Ewing in 1964, although the possibility of such objects was discussed as early as the 18th century.
In the movie 'Interstellar', the characters travel through a wormhole that, like a regular black hole, lacks a destructive singularity.