Black holes and cosmic censorship

Thesis/Dissertation · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1979

OSTI ID:5980119

Hiscock, W A

It is widely accepted that the complete gravitational collapse of a body always yields a black hole, and that naked singularities are never produced (the cosmic censorship hypothesis). The local (or strong) cosmic censorship hypothesis states that singularities which are even locally naked (e.g., to an observer inside a black hole) are never produced. This dissertation studies the validity of these two conjectures. The Kerr-Newman metrics describes the black holes only when M/sup 2/ greater than or equal to Q/sup 2/ + P/sup 2/, where M is the mass of the black hole, a = J/M its specific angular momentum, Q its electric charge, and P its magnetic charge. In the first part of this dissertation, the possibility of converting an extreme Kerr-Newman black hole (M/sup 2/ = a/sup 2/ + Q/sup 2/ + P/sup 2/) into a naked singularity by the accretion of test particles is considered. The motion of test particles is studied with a large angular momentum to energy ratio, and also test particles with a large charge to energy ratio. The final state is always found to be a black hole if the angular momentum, electric charge, and magnetic charge of the black hole are all much greater than the corresponding angular momentum, electric charge, and magnetic charge of the test particle. In Part II of this dissertation possible black hole interior solutions are studied. The Cauchy horizons and locally naked timelike singularities of the charged (and/or rotating) solutions are contrasted with the spacelike all-encompassing singularity of the Schwarzschild solution. It is determined which portions of the analytic extension of the Reissner-Nordstroem solution are relevant to realistic gravitational collapse.

• Research Organization: Maryland Univ., College Park (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5980119
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BLACK HOLES
GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
ELECTRIC CHARGES
EQUATIONS OF MOTION
KERR METRIC
MASS
QUANTUM MECHANICS
SCHWARZSCHILD METRIC
SINGULARITY
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS
MECHANICS
METRICS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
640102* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources