Gravitational Collapse: Generalizing Oppenheimer-Snyder and a Conjecture on Horizon Formation Time

TL;DR

This paper generalizes the classical gravitational collapse model by exploring various exterior spacetimes, analyzing horizon formation, and proposing an inequality for the event horizon formation time, with implications for black hole physics.

Contribution

It introduces a broader class of collapse models with different exterior geometries and formulates a conjecture on the maximum event horizon formation time.

Findings

Existence of a critical initial radius for black hole formation.

The event horizon formation time is bounded by a specific inequality.

Effects of cosmological constant and charge influence collapse dynamics.

Abstract

We generalize the Oppenheimer-Snyder model of gravitational collapse by considering a broader class of static, spherically symmetric exterior spacetimes, with an interior geometry described by a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) geometry. Using Painleve-Gullstrand (PG) coordinates for the spatially flat interior geometry (k=0) and a Novikov-like coordinate system for the spatially closed geometry (k=1), we ensured a smooth transition between the interior and exterior of the collapsing star. By providing general formulas, we analyzed how apparent and event horizons form during the collapse and checked whether the matter satisfies standard energy conditions. For both k=0 and k=1 cases, we studied explicit examples such as Schwarzschild, Schwarzschild-AdS/dS, and Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) black holes, taking into account the effects of the cosmological constant and electric charge. These factors significantly influence the collapse process and can impose constraints on the physical parameters. Our analysis leads to two important results: First, to form a black hole, there is a minimum or critical initial radius for the star to begin collapsing. Second, we propose a conjecture of an inequality regarding the event horizon formation time, starting from the critical radius, namely Delta T_eh <= 19M/6. The upper bound is saturated by the Schwarzschild black hole.