Quasi-periodic relativistic shells in reflecting boundaries: How likely are black holes to form?

Abstract

A system of two gravitating bodies floating around a restricted region of strong gravitational field is investigated. We consider two concentric spherically symmetric timelike shells spatially constrained by a perfectly reflecting inner and outer boundary. It is shown numerically that even when the gravitational radius of a contracting shell is larger than the radius of the inner boundary, energy transfer occurs due to the intersection with the other expanding shell before the contracting shell becomes a black hole, resulting nonlinearly stable motion. The system appears to be in a permanently stable periodic motion due to the repetition of forward and reverse energy transfer. The larger the specific energy of a shell, the more stable the motion is. In addition, the motion of the null shell as the fastest limit of the timelike shell is also investigated. Unlike the timelike shell, the motion of the two null shells reduces to exact recurrence equations. By analyzing the recurrence equations, we find the null shells also allow stable motions. Using the algebraic computation of the recurrence equations, we show numerical integration is not necessary for the nonlinear dynamics of the null shells in confined geometry.