Comment on “Acceleration of particles to high energy via gravitational repulsion in the Schwarzschild field” [Astropart. Phys. 86 (2017) 18–20]

Alessandro D. A. M. Spallicci (1, 2)

1 OSUC - Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers en région Centre
2 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace

Comments are due on a recent paper by McGruder III (2017) in which the author deals with the concept of gravitational repulsion in the context of the Schwarzschild–Droste solution. Repulsion (deceleration) for ingoing particles into a black hole is a concept proposed several times starting from Droste himself in 1916. It is a coordinate effect appearing to an observer at a remote distance from the black hole and when coordinate time is employed. Repulsion has no bearing and relation to the local physics of the black hole, and moreover it cannot be held responsible for accelerating outgoing particles. Thereby, the energy boost of cosmic rays cannot be produced by repulsion.

Keywords: Free fall; Geodesics; Cosmic rays; Black holes; Repulsion

Domains: Astrophysics [astro-ph]; General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology [gr-qc]

Alessandro D. A. M. Spallicci. Comment on “Acceleration of particles to high energy via gravitational repulsion in the Schwarzschild field” [Astropart. Phys. 86 (2017) 18–20]. Astroparticle Physics, 2017, 94, pp.42-43. ⟨10.1016/j.astropartphys.2017.08.002⟩. ⟨insu-01579590⟩