Gravitational collapse of a radiating shell and radiation bursts

Abstract

We study the collapse of a self-gravitating thick shell of bosons coupled to a scalar radiation field. Due to the non-adiabaticity of the collapse, the shell (quantum) internal degrees of freedom absorb energy from the (classical) gravitational field and are excited. The excitation energy is then emitted in the form of bursts of (thermal) radiation and the corresponding backreaction on the trajectory is estimated.