David Hilditch (Center for Astrophysics and Gravitation, Insituto Superior Técnico)

Title: The Black Hole Threshold
Abstract: The weak cosmic censorship conjecture asserts that generic asymptotically flat initial data develops into a spacetime in which future null-infinity is complete. It is often informally summarized under the slogan ``there are no naked singularities". In this seminar I will review the status of the conjecture. Moving on to introduce critical phenomena in gravitational collapse, I will then explain a strategy employed in numerical relativity to search, in solution space, for the threshold of black hole formation. Despite this need for fine tuning, threshold solutions are incredibly interesting because evidence suggests that they contain naked singularities. Solutions close to the threshold of collapse are presently best understood in spherical symmetry, where they exhibit a remarkable simplicity. I will close by discussing recent studies suggesting that the threshold of collapse becomes considerably more subtle as symmetry is dropped.

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