Numerical simulation of a possible counterexample to cosmic censorship

TL;DR

This paper presents a numerical simulation of a specific initial data setup that was conjectured to violate cosmic censorship, but the results show black hole formation instead, supporting the conjecture.

Contribution

The study provides the first detailed numerical simulation of Hertog, Horowitz, and Maeda's initial data, showing no violation of cosmic censorship for moderate wall sizes.

Findings

No violation of cosmic censorship observed

Formation of a small black hole in the simulation

Results suggest larger walls might still violate censorship

Abstract

A numerical simulation is presented here of the evolution of initial data of the kind that was conjectured by Hertog, Horowitz and Maeda to be a violation of cosmic censorship. That initial data is essentially a thick domain wall connecting two regions of anti-deSitter space. The initial data has a free parameter that is the initial size of the wall. The simulation shows no violation of cosmic censorship, but rather the formation of a small black hole. The simulation described here is for a moderate wall size and leaves open the possibility that cosmic censorship might be violated for larger walls.