RUI: Nature of Spacetimes with Mild Singularities or Cauchy Horizons

United States Naval Academy- Do Not Use, Annapolis MD

Investigators

Abstract

Penrose's Cosmic Censorship Conjectures suggest that, in astrophysically realistic strong-field gravity situations, Einstein's theory of general relativity will break down (become singular), as a crushing singularuty that destroys all matter that falls into it. Examples are known of solutions to the theory with completely different types of singularities. In most cases, it is an open question, as to whether the singularity structure of these examples is stable or whether the addition of realistic matter will convert the singularity to the crushing type. The question is open because calculation of the new solution including matter is very difficult. The PI and collaborator have developed a number of conjectures to bypass the difficulty be relating the singularity structure of the new (but unknown) solution to the behavior of test (non-gravitating) matter in the original solution.. This project continues the development and testing of these conjectures for classical and quantum mechanical matter sources. This is an RUI project. Undergraduates from the US Naval Academy will be involved in this reserach through the use of algebraic manipulation software to test the conjectures.