Testing Cosmic Censorship in Kerr-like Collapse Situations

Abstract

According to the cosmic censorship hypothesis of Penrose, naked singularities should never occur in realistic collapse situations. One of the major open problems in this context is the existence of a naked singularity in the Kerr solution with |a|>m; this singularity can be interpreted as the final product of collapse of a rapidly rotating object. Assuming that certain very general and physically reasonable conditions hold, we show here, using the global techniques, that a realistic gravitational collapse of any rotating object, which develops from a regular initial state, cannot lead to the formation of a final state resembling the Kerr solution with a naked singularity. This result supports the validity of the cosmic censorship hypothesis.