Gravitational Collapse: The Story so far

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding of the outcomes of gravitational collapse, focusing on black holes and naked singularities, and discusses recent developments and future research directions in relativistic astrophysics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of the progress in understanding gravitational collapse, highlighting the significance of naked singularities and recent theoretical advancements.

Findings

Black holes are increasingly observed and modeled in astrophysics.

Naked singularities remain a topic of active research and debate.

Recent theoretical developments shed light on the structure and implications of singularities.

Abstract

An outstanding problem in gravitation theory and relativistic astrophysics today is to understand the final outcome of an endless gravitational collapse. Such a continual collapse would take place when stars more massive than few times the mass of the sun collapse under their own gravity on exhausting their nuclear fuel. According to the general theory of relativity, this results either in a black hole, or a naked singularity- which can communicate with faraway observers in the universe. While black holes are (almost) being detected and are increasingly used to model high energy astrophysical phenomena, naked singularities have turned into a topic of active discussion, aimed at understanding their structure and implications. Recent developments here are reviewed, indicating future directions.