The textbook is designed for physics graduate students who want to start their research career in the field of black holes; postdocs who recently changed their research focus towards black holes and want to get up-to-date on recent and current research topics; advanced researchers intending to teach (or learn) basic and advanced aspects of black hole physics and the associated mathematical tools. Besides general relativity, the reader needs to be familiar with standard undergraduate physics, like thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. Moreover, familiarity with basic quantum field theory in Minkowski space is assumed. The book covers the rest of the needed background material in the main text or the appendices. weiterlesen