We prove that in the nonextreme KerrNewman black hole geometry, the Dirac equation has no normalizable, timeperiodic solutions. A key tool is Chandrasekhar's separation of the Dirac equation in this geometry. A similar nonexistence theorem is established in a more general class of stationary, axisymmetric metrics in which the Dirac equation is known to be separable. These results indicate that, in contrast to the classical situation of massive particle orbits, a quantum mechanical Dirac particle must either disappear into the black hole or escape to infinity. 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The coupled Einstein-Dirac equations for a static, spherically symmetric system of two fermions in a singlet spinor state are derived. Using numerical methods, we construct an infinite number of solitonlike solutions of these equations. The stability of the solutions is analyzed. For weak coupling (ie, small rest mass of the fermions), all the solutions are linearly stable (with respect to spherically symmetric perturbations), whereas for stronger coupling, both stable and unstable solutions exist. For the physical interpretation, we discuss how the energy of the fermions and the (ADM) mass behave as functions of the rest mass of the fermions. Although gravitation is not renormalizable, our solutions of the Einstein-Dirac equations are regular and well behaved even for strong coupling.

When enough matter is condensed in a small region, gravitational effects will be strong enough to cause collapse and a black hole will be formed. We formulate and prove here such a statement in the language of general relativity. (This is Theorem 2 of this paper.)