Collapsing shells of radiation in anti-de Sitter spacetimes and the hoop and cosmic censorship conjectures

Gravitational collapse of radiation in an anti-de Sitter background is studied. For the spherical case, the collapse proceeds in much the same way as in the Minkowski background, i.e., massless naked singularities may form for a highly inhomogeneous collapse, violating the cosmic censorship, but not the hoop conjecture. The toroidal, cylindrical and planar collapses can be treated together. In these cases no naked singularity ever forms, in accordance with the cosmic censorship. However, since the collapse proceeds to form toroidal, cylindrical or planar black holes, the hoop conjecture in an anti-de Sitter spacetime is violated.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex Journal: to appear in Physical Review

Two-Dimensional Black Holes and Planar General Relativity

The Einstein-Hilbert action with a cosmological term is used to derive a new action in 1+1 spacetime dimensions. It is shown that the two-dimensional theory is equivalent to planar symmetry in General Relativity. The two-dimensional theory admits black holes and free dilatons, and has a structure similar to two-dimensional string theories. Since by construction these solutions also solve Einstein's equations, such a theory can bring two-dimensional results into the four-dimensional real world. In particular the two-dimensional black hole is also a black hole in General Relativity.Comment: 11 pages, plainte

Exact General Relativistic Disks with Magnetic Fields

The well-known ``displace, cut, and reflect'' method used to generate cold disks from given solutions of Einstein equations is extended to solutions of Einstein-Maxwell equations. Four exact solutions of the these last equations are used to construct models of hot disks with surface density, azimuthal pressure, and azimuthal current. The solutions are closely related to Kerr, Taub-NUT, Lynden-Bell-Pinault and to a one-soliton solution. We find that the presence of the magnetic field can change in a nontrivial way the different properties of the disks. In particular, the pure general relativistic instability studied by Bicak, Lynden-Bell and Katz [Phys. Rev. D47, 4334, 1993] can be enhanced or cured by different distributions of currents inside the disk. These currents, outside the disk, generate a variety of axial symmetric magnetic fields. As far as we know these are the first models of hot disks studied in the context of general relativity.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, uses package graphics, accepted in PR

Membrane paradigm and entropy of black holes in the Euclidean action approach

The membrane paradigm approach to black holes fixes in the vicinity of the event horizon a fictitious surface, the stretched horizon, so that the spacetime outside remains unchanged and the spacetime inside is vacuum. Using this powerful method, several black hole properties have been found and settled, such as the horizon's viscosity, electrical conductivity, resistivity, as well as other properties. On the other hand the Euclidean action approach to black hole spacetimes has been very fruitful in understanding black hole entropy. Combining both the Euclidean action and membrane paradigm approaches a direct derivation of the black hole entropy is given. In the derivation it is considered that the only fields present are the gravitational and matter fields, with no electric field.Comment: 13 page

The Three-Dimensional BTZ Black Hole as a Cylindrical System in Four-Dimensional General Relativity

It is shown how to transform the three dimensional BTZ black hole into a four dimensional cylindrical black hole (i.e., black string) in general relativity. This process is identical to the transformation of a point particle in three dimensions into a straight cosmic string in four dimensions.Comment: Latex, 9 page

Gravitational collapse to toroidal, cylindrical and planar black holes

Gravitational collapse of non-spherical symmetric matter leads inevitably to non-static external spacetimes. It is shown here that gravitational collapse of matter with toroidal topology in a toroidal anti-de Sitter background proceeds to form a toroidal black hole. According to the analytical model presented, the collapsing matter absorbs energy in the form of radiation (be it scalar, neutrinos, electromagnetic, or gravitational) from the exterior spacetime. Upon decompactification of one or two coordinates of the torus one gets collapsing solutions of cylindrical or planar matter onto black strings or black membranes, respectively. The results have implications on the hoop conjecture.Comment: 6 pages, Revtex, modifications in the title and in the interpretation of some results, to appear in Physical Review

Rotating Relativistic Thin Disks

Two families of models of rotating relativistic disks based on Taub-NUT and Kerr metrics are constructed using the well-known "displace, cut and reflect" method. We find that for disks built from a generic stationary axially symmetric metric the "sound velocity", $(pressure/density)^{1/2}$, is equal to the geometric mean of the prograde and retrograde geodesic circular velocities of test particles moving on the disk. We also found that for generic disks we can have zones with heat flow. For the two families of models studied the boundaries that separate the zones with and without heat flow are not stable against radial perturbations (ring formation).Comment: 18 eps figures, to be published PR

Thermodynamics of the two-dimensional black hole in the Teitelboim-Jackiw theory

The two-dimensional theory of Teitelboim and Jackiw has constant and negative curvature. In spite of this, the theory admits a black hole solution with no singularities. In this work we study the thermodynamics of this black hole using York's formalism.Comment: 16 pages, Late

Relativistic Static Thin Disks: The Counter-Rotating Model

A detailed study of the Counter-Rotating Model (CRM) for generic finite static axially symmetric thin disks with nonzero radial pressure is presented. We find a general constraint over the counter-rotating tangential velocities needed to cast the surface energy-momentum tensor of the disk as the superposition of two counter-rotating perfect fluids. We also found expressions for the energy density and pressure of the counter-rotating fluids. Then we shown that, in general, there is not possible to take the two counter-rotating fluids as circulating along geodesics neither take the two counter-rotating tangential velocities as equal and opposite. An specific example is studied where we obtain some CRM with well defined counter-rotating tangential velocities and stable against radial perturbations. The CRM obtained are in agree with the strong energy condition, but there are regions of the disks with negative energy density, in violation of the weak energy condition.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Physical Review

The Two-Dimensional Analogue of General Relativity

General Relativity in three or more dimensions can be obtained by taking the limit $\omega\rightarrow\infty$ in the Brans-Dicke theory. In two dimensions General Relativity is an unacceptable theory. We show that the two-dimensional closest analogue of General Relativity is a theory that also arises in the limit $\omega\rightarrow\infty$ of the two-dimensional Brans-Dicke theory.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, preprint DF/IST-17.9