Physical Processes in Naked Singularity Formation

TL;DR

This paper reviews the formation of naked singularities in gravitational collapse and discusses recent research on observable phenomena like gravitational waves and quantum effects associated with these singularities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of naked singularity formation and recent progress in understanding observable physical processes from such singularities.

Findings

Examples of naked singularity formation are reviewed.

Recent progress in gravitational radiation from naked singularities is discussed.

Quantum particle creation near naked singularities is analyzed.

Abstract

Gravitational collapse is one of the most fruitful subjects in gravitational physics. It is well known that singularity formation is inevitable in complete gravitational collapse. It was conjectured that such a singularity should be hidden by horizons if it is formed from generic initial data with physically reasonable matter fields. Many possible counterexamples to this conjecture have been proposed over the past three decades, although none of them has proved to be sufficiently generic. In these examples, there appears a singularity that is not hidden by horizons. This singularity is called a `naked singularity.' The appearance of a naked singularity represents the formation of an observable high-curvature, strong-gravity region. In this paper we review examples of naked singularity formation and recent progress in research of observable physical processes - gravitational radiation and quantum particle creation - from a forming naked singularity.