Cosmic Censorship: The Role of Quantum Gravity

The cosmic censorship hypothesis introduced by Penrose thirty years ago is still one of the most important open questions in {\it classical} general relativity. In this essay we put forward the idea that cosmic censorship is intrinsically a {\it quantum gravity} phenomena. To that end we construct a gedanken experiment in which cosmic censorship is violated within the purely {\it classical} framework of general relativity. We prove, however, that {\it quantum} effects restore the validity of the conjecture. This suggests that classical general relativity is inconsistent and that cosmic censorship might be enforced only by a quantum theory of gravity.Comment: 7 pages. This essay received the Second Prize from the Gravity Research Foundation 200

Strong cosmic censorship in vacuum space--times with compact, locally homogeneous Cauchy surfaces

We consider the question of strong cosmic censorship in spatially compact, spatially locally homogeneous vacuum models. We show in particular that strong cosmic censorship holds in Bianchi IX vacuum space--times with spherical spatial topology.Comment: Latex, 38 page

Nature of singularities in gravitational collapse

We discuss several aspects of cosmic censorship hypothesis. There is evidence both in favor and against the hypothesis. On one hand one can prove that cosmic censorship holds in several special cases and on the other hand there is a number of special solutions of Einstein equations in which it is violated. One way to resolve cosmic censorship problem is to test it observationally. We point out to several possibilities of such tests using present and future instruments.Comment: 11 pages, PTPTeX, references added, typos corrected, submitted to Proceedings of the Yukawa-Kyoto International Seminar 9

Wormhole Cosmic Censorship

We analyze the properties of a Kerr-like wormhole supported by phantom matter, which is an exact solution of the Einstein-phantom field equations. It is shown that the solution has a naked ring singularity which is unreachable to null geodesics falling freely from the outside. Similarly to Roger Penrose's cosmic censorship, that states that all naked singularities in the Universe must be protected by event horizons, here we conjecture from our results that a naked singularity can also be fully protected by the intrinsic properties of a wormhole's throat

Strong Cosmic Censorship under Quasinormal Modes of Non-Minimally Coupled Massive Scalar Field

We investigate the strong cosmic censorship conjecture in lukewarm Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m-de Sitter black holes (and Mart\'{i}nez-Troncoso-Zanelli black holes) using the quasinormal resonance of non-minimally coupled massive scalar field. The strong cosmic censorship conjecture is closely related to the stability of the Cauchy horizon governed by the decay rate of the dominant quasinormal mode. Here, dominant modes are obtained in the limits of small and large mass black holes. Then, we connect the modes by using the WKB approximation. In our analysis, the strong cosmic censorship conjecture is valid except in the range of the small-mass limit, in which the dominant mode can be assumed to be that of the de Sitter spacetime. Particularly, the coupling constant and mass of the scalar field determine the decay rate in the small mass range. Therefore, the validity of the strong cosmic censorship conjecture depends on the characteristics of the scalar field.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, published in EPJ

Numerical simulation of a possible counterexample to cosmic censorship

A numerical simulation is presented here of the evolution of initial data of the kind that was conjectured by Hertog, Horowitz and Maeda to be a violation of cosmic censorship. That initial data is essentially a thick domain wall connecting two regions of anti-deSitter space. The initial data has a free parameter that is the initial size of the wall. The simulation shows no violation of cosmic censorship, but rather the formation of a small black hole. The simulation described here is for a moderate wall size and leaves open the possibility that cosmic censorship might be violated for larger walls.Comment: discussion clarifie