As first discovered by Choptuik, the black hole threshold in the space of initial data for general relativity shows both surprising structure and surprising simplicity. Universality, power-law scaling of the black hole mass, and scale echoing have given rise to the term “critical phenomena”. They are explained by the existence of exact solutions which are attractors within the black hole threshold, that is, attractors of codimension one in phase space, and which are typically self-similar. Critical phenomena give a natural route from smooth initial data to arbitrarily large curvatures visible from infinity, and are therefore likely to be relevant for cosmic censorship, quantum gravity, astrophysics, and our general understanding of the dynamics of general relativity.
Keywords: Naked singularities, Gravitational collapse, Scaling laws, Phase space, Self-similarity, Critical phenomena, Numerical relativity, Black holes, Stability
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Since a Living Reviews in Relativity article may evolve over time, please cite the access <date>, which uniquely identifies the version of the article you are referring to:
Carsten Gundlach and José M. Martín-García,
"Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse",
Living Rev. Relativity 10, (2007), 5. URL (cited on <date>):
http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2007-5
ORIGINAL | http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-1999-4 |
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Title | Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse |
Author | Carsten Gundlach |
Date | accepted 7 December 1999, published 22 December 1999 |
UPDATE | http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2007-5 |
Title | Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse |
Author | Carsten Gundlach / José M. Martín-García |
Date | accepted 6 December 2007, published 11 December 2007 |
Changes | Completely restructured and updated review with new co-author José M. Martín-García. Omitted some details not central to the topic, e.g., in Sections 3.2 and 4.1 (new 2.4) of 1999 version; original Section 4.4 with technical details has been dropped. References have been updated and increased in number from 124 to 195. |
FAST-TRACK REVISION | |
Date | accepted 22 February 2010, published 23 February 2010 |
Changes | Added summaries of papers which have appeared since the last version of 2007 (17 new references have been added.).
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