Seven different refinements of trapped surfaces are proposed, each intended as potential stability conditions. This article concerns spherical symmetry, but each condition can be generalized. Involute trapped spheres satisfy a similar condition to minimal trapped spheres, which are are strictly minimal with respect to the Kodama vector. There is also a weaker version of involute trapped. Outer trapped spheres have positive surface gravity. Increasingly (future, respectively past) trapped spheres generate spheres which are more trapped in a (future, respectively past) causal direction, with three types: in any such causal direction, along the dual Kodama vector, and in some such causal direction. Assuming the null energy condition, the seven conditions form a strict hierarchy, in the above order. In static space-times, they reduce to three inequivalent definitions, namely minimal, outer and increasingly trapped spheres. For a widely considered class of so-called nice (or non-dirty) black holes, minimal trapped and outer trapped become equivalent. Reissner-Nordström black holes provide examples of this, and that increasingly trapped differs. Examples where all three refinements differ are provided by a simple family of dirty black holes parameterized by mass and singularity area.
In classical numerical relativity, marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) are the main tool to locate and characterize black holes. For five decades it has been known that during a binary merger, a new outer horizon forms around the initial apparent horizons of the individual holes once they are sufficiently close together. However the ultimate fate of those initial horizons has remained a subject of speculation. Recent axisymmetric studies have shed new light on this process and this pair of papers essentially completes that line of research: we resolve the key features of the post-swallow…
A marginally outer trapped hypersurface is a generalization of minimal hypersurfaces originated from general relativity. We show a curvature estimate for stable marginally outer trapped hypersurfaces up to the free boundary satisfying a uniform area bound. Our proof is based on an iteration argument. The curvature estimate was previously known via a blowup argument for stable minimal hypersurfaces.
We explore various notions of stability for surfaces embedded and immersed in spacetimes and initial data sets. The interest in such surfaces lies in their potential to go beyond the variational techniques which often underlie the study of minimal and CMC surfaces. We prove two versions of Christodoulou-Yau estimate for $\mathbf{H}$-stable surfaces, a Cohn-Vossen type inequality for non-compact stable marginally outer trapped surface (MOTS), and a global theorem on the topology of $\mathbf{H}$-stable surfaces. Moreover, we give a definition of capillary stability for MOTS with boundary. This n…
We solve Einstein vacuum equations in a spacetime region up to the "center" of gravitational collapse. Within this region, we construct a sequence of marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTS) with areas going to zero. These MOTS form a marginally outer trapped tube (apparent horizon). It emerges from a point and is smooth (except at that point) and spacelike. In the proof we employ a scale critical trapped surface formation criterion established by An and Luk and a new type of quasilinear elliptic equation is studied. The main conclusion of this paper proves a conjecture of Ashtekar on black ho…
In this paper, we analyse the causal aspects of evolving marginally trapped surfaces in a D-dimensional spherically symmetric spacetime, sourced by perfect fluid with a cosmological constant. The norm of the normal to the marginally trapped tube is shown to be the product of lie derivatives of the expansion parameter of future outgoing null rays along the incoming and outgoing null directions. We obtain a closed form expression for this norm in terms of principal density, pressure, areal radius and cosmological constant. For the case of a homogeneous fluid distribution, we obtain a simple form…
