20 Years of Frozar Theory

About the event

On 20 October 2006, the journal “Theoretical Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology” published Zahid Zakir’s paper “On the Theory of Gravitationally Frozen Superdense and Supermassive Objects.” The journal was published by the Center for Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics (CTPA, Tashkent; https://ctpa.uz), had ISSN identifiers and official registration, and subsequently DOI identifiers (https://theor-phys.org).

Since 2020, the journal has been published under the name “Quantum and Gravitational Physics” (https://qgph.uz).

Frozar theory presents a consistent application of Einstein’s theory of gravity to stellar gravitational collapse during the finite history of our Universe.

It proposes to replace the previously prevailing black-hole hypothesis and interprets all astronomical objects conventionally called black holes as frozars.

According to the author’s interpretation, the black-hole hypothesis predicts that a collapsing star turns into a black hole only after an infinite interval of world (astronomical or cosmological) time; nevertheless, objects observed today have been identified as already-formed black holes.

In frozar theory, by contrast, collapse is described at each moment of world time, and the star’s structure is studied with careful account of the gravitational slowing of all physical processes in a strong gravitational field.

In frozar theory, the main factor slowing down and practically halting stellar collapse is the gravitational slowing of all physical processes, and hence of proper times, relative to world time. Einstein predicted the underlying physical effect more than a century ago, and gravitational time dilation has been confirmed in numerous experiments. In the theory, this slowing leads to asymptotic freezing of the stellar surface outside its gravitational radius and of the internal layers near the respective gravitational radii determined by the masses enclosed within those layers. The gravitational radius is defined here as the radius at which the infall speed would reach the speed of light in the absence of this slowing. The author named the resulting object, with its gravitationally frozen structure, a “frozar,” short for “frozen star.”

Over two decades, this research programme has developed through more than twenty scientific papers. They investigate consequences of exact solutions of Einstein’s gravitational field equations for thin spherical shells and collapsing dust stars, as well as observable astrophysical effects.