Shear-free gravitational collapse is strongly censored

Abstract

We consider spherically symmetric spacetimes with matter whose timelike flow is assumed to be shear-free. A number of results on the formation and visibility of spacetime singularities is proven, with the main one being that shear-free collapse cannot admit locally naked singularities (which implies absence of globally naked singularities). We conjecture that shear is a necessary condition for the occurrence of locally naked singularities in generic gravitational collapse.