Mass inflation and curvature divergence near the central singularity in spherical collapse

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of scalar fields during spherical gravitational collapse, revealing mass inflation and curvature divergence near the black hole's central singularity due to strong backreaction effects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the asymptotic dynamics near the singularity, highlighting the mass inflation phenomenon caused by scalar field backreaction.

Findings

Mass function inflates near the singularity.

Kretschmann scalar diverges faster than in Schwarzschild.

Misner-Sharp mass remains conserved locally.

Abstract

We study spherical scalar collapse toward a black hole formation and examine the asymptotic dynamics near the central singularity of the formed black hole. It is found that, in the vicinity of the singularity, due to the strong backreaction of a scalar field on the geometry, the mass function inflates and the Kretschmann scalar grows faster than in the Schwarzschild geometry. In collapse, the Misner-Sharp mass is a locally conserved quantity, not providing information on the black hole mass that is measured at asymptotically flat regions.