Spherically symmetric gravitational collapse of a dust cloud in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet Gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the Gauss-Bonnet term affects gravitational collapse in higher-dimensional gravity, revealing significant changes in singularity structure and challenging cosmic censorship in certain dimensions.

Contribution

It provides new solutions for dust cloud collapse in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity and analyzes the impact of the Gauss-Bonnet term on singularity formation and space-time structure.

Findings

Gauss-Bonnet term significantly alters singularity nature.

Naked singularities are possible in 5D but forbidden in 6D and above.

Naked singularities in 5D are gravitationally strong and challenge cosmic censorship.

Abstract

We explore the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric dust cloud in the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity without a cosmological constant, and obtain three families of LTB-like solutions. It is shown that the Gauss-Bonnet term has a profound influence on the nature of singularities, and the global structure of space-time changes drastically from the analogous general relativistic case. Interestingly, the formation of a naked, massive and uncentral singularity, allowed in 5-dimensional space-time, is forbidden if $D\geq6$. Moreover, such singularity is gravitational strong and a serious counter example to CCH.