Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse: The Studies So Far

Studies of black hole formation from gravitational collapse have revealed interesting non-linear phenomena at the threshold of black hole formation. In particular, in 1993 Choptuik studied the collapse of a massless scalar field with spherical symmetry and found some behaviour, which is quite similar to the critical phenomena well-known in {\em Statistical Mechanics} and {\em Quantum Field Theory}. Universality and echoing of the critical solution and power-law scaling of the black hole masses have given rise to the name {\em Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse}. Choptuik's results were soon confirmed both numerically and semi-analytically, and have extended to various other matter fields. In this paper, we shall give a brief introduction to this fascinating and relatively new area, and provides an updated publication list. An analytical "toy" model of critical collapse is presented, and some current investigations are given.Comment: 5 figures, revtex. To appear in Braz. J. Phys. (2001

On Gauge Choice of Spherically Symmetric 3-Branes

Gauge choice for a spherically symmetric 3-brane embedded in a D-dimensional bulk with arbitrary matter fields on and off the brane is studied. It is shown that Israel's junction conditions across the brane restrict severely the dependence of the matter fields on the spacetime coordinates. As examples, a scalar field or a Yang-Mills potential can be only either time-dependent or radial-coordinate dependent for the chosen gauge, while for a perfect fluid it must be co-moving.Comment: Latex, final version to appear in Class. Quantum Gra

Energy conditions and current acceleration of the universe

The energy conditions provide a very promising model-independent study of the current acceleration of the universe. However, in order to connect these conditions with observations, one often needs first to integrate them, and then find the corresponding constraints on some observational variables, such as the distance modulus. Those integral forms can be misleading, and great caution is needed when one interprets them physically. A typical example is that the transition point of the deceleration parameter $q(z)$ is at about $z \simeq 0.76$ in the $\Lambda$CDM model. However, with the same model when we consider the dimensionless Hubble parameter $E(z)$, which involves the integration of $q(z)$, we find that $E(z)$ does not cross the line of $q(z) = 0$ before $z = 2$. Therefore, to get the correct result, we cannot use the latter to determine the transition point. With these in mind, we carefully study the constraints from the energy conditions, and find that, among other things, the current observational data indeed strongly indicate that our universe has ocne experienced an accelerating expansion phase between the epoch of galaxy formation and the present.Comment: revtex4, five figures. Corrected some typos and added new references. Physics Letters B652, 63-68 (2007