Initial data and spherical dust collapse

TL;DR

This paper investigates the initial conditions leading to naked singularities or black holes in spherical dust collapse, introducing central homogeneity as a key factor and discussing the physical reasonableness of perturbations.

Contribution

It establishes the necessity of central homogeneity for naked singularities and argues that physically reasonable perturbations stabilize the collapse outcomes.

Findings

Naked singularities require centrally homogeneous initial data.

Physically reasonable perturbations do not favor naked singularities.

Central inhomogeneity perturbations are deemed physically unreasonable.

Abstract

By considering families of radial null geodesics, we study the subsets of initial data that lead to naked singularities and black holes in inhomogeneous spherical dust collapse. We introduce the notion of central homogeneity for spherical dust collapse and prove that for the occurrence of naked singularities, the initial data set must in general be centrally homogeneous. Even though mathematically this indicates that naked singularities are in general unstable, we show that centrally inhomogeneous perturbations in the initial data are not physically reasonable. This provides an example of the fact that instability in this context deduced with respect to general perturbations can become stabilised once the class of perturbations are restricted to be physical.