Static spherically symmetric scalar field spacetimes with C^0 matching

Abstract

All the classes of static massless scalar field models available currently in the Einstein theory of gravity necessarily contain a strong curvature naked singularity. We obtain here a family of solutions for static massless scalar fields coupled to gravity, which does not have any strong curvature singularity. This class of models contain a thin shell of singular matter, which has a physical interpretation. The central curvature singularity is, however, avoided which is common to all static massless scalar field spacetimes models known so far. Our result thus points out that the full class of solutions in this case may contain non-singular models, which is an intriguing possibility.