Black hole formation in Randall-Sundrum II braneworlds

Abstract

We present the first numerical study of the full dynamics of a braneworld scenario, working within the framework of the single brane model of Randall and Sundrum (RSII). In particular, we study the process of gravitational collapse driven by a massless scalar field which is confined to the brane. Imposing spherical symmetry on the brane, we show that the evolutions of sufficiently strong initial configurations of the scalar field result in black holes that have finite extension into the bulk. Furthermore, we find preliminary evidence that the black holes generated form a unique sequence, irrespective of the details of the initial data. The black hole solutions we obtain from dynamical evolutions are consistent with those previously computed from a static vacuum ansatz.