Black Holes – What Happens to Photons Trapped in a Black Hole’s Event Horizon?

Question

So, I know that photons do not travel fast enough to escape a black hole once it passes the event horizon. Also, I know that the photons themselves aren't affected by the gravity, but rather their path instead. My question is, if the photons are stuck in-between the singularity and the event horizon, where do they go? Do they build up around the singularity, and they just haven't built up enough to pass the event horizon, or do they somehow escape and just don't emit light?

Answer 1

The photons do not get "stuck" at the event horizon, from their own reference frame they are still traveling at C. The event horizon is simply the point where gravity from the singularity is strong enough that the escape velocity exceeds C. Just above the event horizon, photons can still escape the black hole, and just below it they sink into the singularity. Because the singularity is theorized to be infinitely small and of infinite density, the photons and everything else just keep falling into themselves forever.

EDIT 1: Classically the singularity at the centre of the black hole is infinitely small and the tidal forces at the singularity are infinite. This means that at some point the tidal forces will overcome the strong force and the atom will be torn apart into protons and neutrons, then quarks, then ???... Exactly what happens no one knows because we don't have a theory of quantum gravity to model it.

EDIT 2: It IS possible for a photon to get "paused" at the event horizon for a short amount of time. A photon emitted exactly at the event horizon will be in equilibrium right up until the black hole emits some Hawking radiation or swallows something, which would fluctuate the Schwarzschild radius and leave the photon either inside or outside the event horizon. If it is left outside the event horizon and escapes, it would appear as infinitely redshifted to a distant observer (it would be invisible).