Naked singularities in higher dimensional inhomogeneous dust collapse

Abstract

We investigate the occurrence and nature of a naked singularity in the gravitational collapse of an inhomogeneous dust cloud described by a non self-similar higher dimensional Tolman spacetime. The necessary condition for the formation of a naked singularity or a black hole is obtained. The naked singularities are found to be gravitationally strong in the sense of Tipler and provide another example that violates the cosmic censorship conjecture.