Black holes are one of the most fascinating predictions of general relativity. They are the natural product of the complete gravitational collapse of matter and today we have a body of observational evidence supporting the existence of black holes in the Universe. However, general relativity predicts that at the center of black holes there are spacetime singularities, where predictability is lost and standard physics breaks down. It is widely believed that spacetime singularities are a symptom of the limitations of general relativity and must be solved within a theory of quantum gravity. Since we do not have yet any mature and reliable candidate for a quantum gravity theory, researchers have studied toy-models of singularity-free black holes and of singularity-free gravitational collapses in order to explore possible implications of the yet unknown theory of quantum gravity. This book reviews all main models of regular black holes and non-singular gravitational collapses proposed in the literature, and discuss the theoretical and observational implications of these scenarios.

Autorentext

Cosimo Bambi is Xie Xide Junior Chair Professor at the Department of Physics at Fudan University. He received the Laurea degree from Florence University in 2003 and the PhD degree from Ferrara University in 2007. He was appointed as a postdoctoral researcher at IPMU/The University of Tokyo and at LMU Munich. He joined Fudan University at the end of 2012 under the 1000 Young Talents Program. He has received a number of awards, including the Magnolia Gold Award in 2022 and the Magnolia Silver Award in 2018 from the Municipality of Shanghai, the International Excellent Young Scientists Award from the National Natural Science Foundation of China in 2022, and the Xu Guangqi Prize from the Embassy of Italy in Beijing in 2018.

Professor Bambi has worked on a number of topics in the fields of high-energy astrophysics, particle cosmology, and gravity. He has published over 200 papers on refereed journals and authored/edited several academic books with Springer: "Introduction to Particle Cosmology: The Standard Model of Cosmology and its Open Problems" (Springer-Verlag Heidelberg Berlin, 2016), "Astrophysics of Black Holes: From Fundamental Aspects to Latest Developments" (Springer-Verlag Heidelberg Berlin, 2016), "Black Holes: A Laboratory for Testing Strong Gravity" (Springer Singapore, 2017), "Introduction to General Relativity: A Course for Undergraduate Students of Physics" (Springer Singapore, 2018), "Tutorial Guide to X-ray and Gamma-ray Astronomy: Data Reduction and Analysis" (Springer Singapore, 2020), and "Handbook of Gravitational Wave Astronomy" (Springer Singapore, 2022)