Recent developments concerning oscillatory spacelike singularities in general relativity are taking place on two fronts. The first treats generic singularities in spatially homogeneous cosmology, most notably Bianchi types VIII and IX. The second deals with generic oscillatory singularities in inhomogeneous cosmologies, especially those with two commuting spacelike Killing vectors. This paper describes recent progress in these two areas: in the spatially homogeneous case focus is on mathematically rigorous results, while analytical and numerical results concerning generic behavior and so-called recurring spike formation are the main topic in the inhomogeneous case. Unifying themes are connections between asymptotic behavior, hierarchical structures, and solution generating techniques, which provide hints for a link between the nature of generic singularities and a hierarchy of hidden asymptotic symmetries.
Recently, Helliwell and Konkowski (\texttt{gr-qc/0701149}) have examined the quantum "healing" of some classical singularities in certain power-law spacetimes. Here I further examine classical properties of these spacetimes and show that some of them contain naked strong curvature singularities.
Present knowledge about the nature of spacetime singularities in the context of classical general relativity is surveyed. The status of the BKL picture of cosmological singularities and its relevance to the cosmic censorship hypothesis are discussed. It is shown how insights on cosmic censorship also arise in connection with the idea of weak null singularities inside black holes. Other topics covered include matter singularities and critical collapse. Remarks are made on possible future directions in research on spacetime singularities.
After a brief review of the standard definition and analysis of classical singularities in general relativistic spacetimes, and of quantum singularities in static spacetimes with timelike classical singularities, an extension of quantum singularities to conformally static spacetimes is summarized and applied to two test cases. The timelike classical singularities in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe with a cosmic string, and in Roberts spacetime, are shown to be quantum mechanically singular when tested by either minimally coupled or conformally coupled scalar waves. In the Roberts c…
Fuchsian methods and their applications to the study of the structure of spacetime singularities are surveyed. The existence question for spacetimes with compact Cauchy horizons is discussed. After some basic facts concerning Fuchsian equations have been recalled, various ways in which these equations have been applied in general relativity are described. Possible future applications are indicated.
In this talk we review the appearance of new types of singularities (big rip, sudden singularities...) in FLRW cosmological models that have arisen on considering explanations for accelerated expansion of our universe.
A definition of quantum singularity for the case of static spacetimes has recently been extended to conformally static spacetimes. Here the theory behind quantum singularities in conformally static spacetimes is reviewed, and then applied to a class of spherically symmetric, conformally static spacetimes, including as special cases those studied by Roberts, by Fonarev, and by Husain, Martinez, and Núñez. We use solutions of the generally coupled, massless Klein-Gordon equation as test fields. In this way we find the ranges of metric parameters and coupling coefficients for which classical time…
Singularity theorems of general relativity utilize the notion of causal geodesic incompleteness as a criterion of the presence of a spacetime singularity. The incompleteness of a causal curve implies the end and/or beginning of the existence of a particle, which is an event. In the commonly accepted approach, singularities are not incorporated into spacetime. Thus spacetime turns out to be event-incomplete. With creation from nothing, singularities are sources of lawlessness. A straightforward way around those conceptual problems consists in including metric singularities in spacetime and then…
We consider here the genericity aspects of spacetime singularities that occur in cosmology and in gravitational collapse. The singularity theorems (that predict the occurrence of singularities in general relativity) allow the singularities of gravitational collapse to be either visible to external observers or covered by an event horizon of gravity. It is shown that the visible singularities that develop as final states of spherical collapse are generic. Some consequences of this fact are discussed.
We perform numerical simulations of the approach to spacetime singularities. The simulations are done with sufficient resolution to resolve the small scale features (known as spikes) that form in this process. We find an analytical formula for the shape of the spikes and show that the spikes in the simulations are well described by this formula.
We investigate the occurrence of naked singularities in the spherically symmetric, plane symmetric and cylindrically symmetric collapse of charged null fluid in an anti-de Sitter background. The naked singularities are found to be strong in Tipler's sense and thus violate the cosmic censorship conjecture, but not hoop conjecture.
We study the occurrence of naked singularities in the spherically symmetric collapse of a charged null fluid in an expanding deSitter background - a piece of charged Vaidya-deSitter spacetime. The necessary conditions for the formation of a naked singularity are found. The results for the uncharged solutions can be recovered from our analysis.
Levi-Civita spacetimes have classical naked singularities. They also have quantum singularities. Quantum singularities in general relativistic spacetimes are determined by the behavior of quantum test particles. A static spacetime is said to be quantum mechanically singular if the spatial portion of the wave operator is not essentially self-adjoint on a $C_{0}^{\infty}$ domain in $L^{2}$, a Hilbert space of square integrable functions. Here we summarize how Weyl's limit point-limit circle criterion can be used to determine whether a wave operator is essentially self-adjoint and how this test c…
An important question in mathematical relativity theory is that of the nature of spacetime singularities. The equations of general relativity, the Einstein equations, are essentially hyperbolic in nature and the study of spacetime singularities is naturally related to blow-up phenomena for nonlinear hyperbolic systems. These connections are explained and recent progress in applying the theory of hyperbolic equations in this field is presented. A direction which has turned out to be fruitful is that of constructing large families of solutions of the Einstein equations with singularities of a si…
The notion of geometrical duality is discussed in the context of both Brans-Dicke theory and general relativity. It is shown that, in some particular solutions, the spacetime singularities that arise in usual Riemannian general relativity may be avoided in its dual representation (Weyl-type general relativity). This dual representation provides a singularity-free picture of the World that is physicaly equivalent to the canonical general relativistic one.
We discuss the question of whether the existence of singularities is an intrinsic property of 4D spacetime. Our hypothesis is that singularities in 4D are induced by the separation of spacetime from the other dimensions. We examine this hypothesis in the context of the so-called canonical or warp metrics in 5D. These metrics are popular because they provide a clean separation between the extra dimension and spacetime. We show that the spacetime section, in these metrics, inevitably becomes singular for some finite (non-zero) value of the extra coordinate. This is true for all canonical metrics…
This Living Review updates a previous version which its itself an update of a review article. Numerical exploration of the properties of singularities could, in principle, yield detailed understanding of their nature in physically realistic cases. Examples of numerical investigations into the formation of naked singularities, critical behavior in collapse, passage through the Cauchy horizon, chaos of the Mixmaster singularity, and singularities in spatially inhomogeneous cosmologies are discussed.
This is a summary of how the definition of quantum singularity is extended from static space-times to conformally static space-times. Examples are given.
We will briefly review the definition and classification of classical and quantum singularities in general relativity. Examples of classically singular spacetimes that do not have quantum singularities will be given. We will present results on quantum singularities in quasiregular spacetimes. We will also show that a strong repulsive "potential" near the classical singularity can turn a classically singular spacetime into a quantum mechanically nonsingular spacetime.
The spacetime singularities inside realistic black holes are sometimes thought to be spacelike and strong, since there is a generic class of solutions (BKL) to Einsteins equations with these properties. We show that null, weak singularities are also generic, in the following sense: there is a class of vacuum solutions containing null, weak singularities, depending on 8 arbitrary (up to some inequalities) analytic initial functions of 3 spatial coordinates. Since 8 arbitrary functions are needed (in the gauge used here) to span the generic solution, this class can be regarded as generic.
After reviewing the definitions of classical and quantum singularities, it is shown by example that if zeroth-order curvature invariants are regular, a diverging higher-order curvature invariant does not necessarily imply the existence of a classical or a quantum singularity.
The effects of spacetime quantization on black hole and big bang/big crunch singularities can be studied using new tools from (2+1)-dimensional quantum gravity. I investigate effects of spacetime quantization on singularities of the (2+1)-dimensional BTZ black hole and the (2+1)-dimensional torus universe. Hosoya has considered the BTZ black hole, and using a ``quantum generalized affine parameter'' (QGAP), has shown that, for some specific paths, quantum effects ``smear'' the singularity. Using generic gaussian wave functions, I show that both BTZ black hole and the torus universe contain fam…
We study the generic resolution of strong singularities in loop quantized effective Bianchi-IX spacetime in two different quantizations - the connection operator based `A' quantization and the extrinsic curvature based `K' quantization. We show that in the effective spacetime description with arbitrary matter content, it is necessary to include inverse triad corrections to resolve all the strong singularities in the `A' quantization. Whereas in the `K' quantization these results can be obtained without including inverse triad corrections. Under these conditions, the energy density, expansion a…
Generic resolution of singularities and geodesic completeness in the loop quantization of Bianchi-II spacetimes with arbitrary minimally coupled matter is investigated. Using the effective Hamiltonian approach, we examine two available quantizations: one based on the connection operator and second by treating extrinsic curvature as connection via gauge fixing. It turns out that for the connection based quantization, either the inverse triad modifications or imposition of weak energy condition is necessary to obtain a resolution of all strong singularities and geodesic completeness. In contrast…
Fuchsian equations provide a way of constructing large classes of spacetimes whose singularities can be described in detail. In some of the applications of this technique only the analytic case could be handled up to now. This paper develops a method of removing the undesirable hypothesis of analyticity. This is applied to the specific case of the Gowdy spacetimes in order to show that analogues of the results known in the analytic case hold in the smooth case. As far as possible the likely strengths and weaknesses of the method as applied to more general problems are displayed.
We study a broad class of spacetimes whose metric coefficients reduce to powers of a radius r in the limit of small r. Among these four-parameter "power-law" metrics we identify those parameters for which the spacetimes have classical singularities as r approaches 0. We show that a large set of such classically singular spacetimes is nevertheless nonsingular quantum mechanically, in that the Hamiltonian operator is essentially self-adjoint, so that the evolution of quantum wave packets lacks the ambiguity associated with scattering off singularities. Using these metrics, the broadest class yet…
The smooth gravitational singularities of the differential spacetime manifold based General Relativity (GR) are viewed from the perspective of the background manifold independent and, in extenso, Calculus-free Abstract Differential Geometry (ADG). In particular, the inner Schwarzschild singularity is being `resolved' ADG-theoretically in two different ways. A plethora of important mathematical, physical and philosophical issues in current classical and quantum gravity research are addressed and tackled.
Resolution of singularities in the Kantowski-Sachs model due to non-perturbative quantum gravity effects is investigated. Using the effective spacetime description for the improved dynamics version of loop quantum Kantowski-Sachs spacetimes, we show that even though expansion and shear scalars are universally bounded, there can exist events where curvature invariants can diverge. However, such events can occur only for very exotic equations of state when pressure or derivatives of energy density with respect to triads become infinite at a finite energy density. In all other cases curvature inv…
To probe naked spacetime singularities with waves rather than with particles we study the well-posedness of initial value problems for test scalar fields with finite energy so that the natural function space of initial data is the Sobolev space. In the case of static and conformally static spacetimes we examine the essential self-adjointness of the time translation operator in the wave equation defined in the Hilbert space. For some spacetimes the classical singularity becomes regular if probed with waves while stronger classical singularities remain singular. If the spacetime is regular when …
Quantum singularities considered in the 3D BTZ spacetime by Pitelli and Letelier (Phys. Rev. D77: 124030, 2008) is extended to charged BTZ and 3D Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity spacetimes. The occurence of naked singularities in the Einstein-Maxwell extension of the BTZ spacetime both in linear and non-linear electrodynamics as well as in the Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity spacetimes are analysed with the quantum test fields obeying the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations. We show that with the inclusion of the matter fields; the conical geometry near r=0 is removed and restricted classes of …
The conical singularity in flat spacetime is mostly known as a model of the cosmic string or the wedge disclination in solids. Its another, equally important, function is to be a representative of quasiregular singularities. From all these of views it seems interesting to find out whether there exist other similar singularities. To specify what "similar" means I introduce the notion of the string-like singularity, which is, roughly speaking, an absolutely mild singularity concentrated on a curve or on a 2-surface S (depending on whether the space is three- of four-dimensional). A few such sing…
We point out that past-incompleteness of geodesics in FLRW spacetimes does not necessarily imply that these spacetimes start from a singularity. Namely, if a test particle that follows such a trajectory has a non-vanishing velocity, its energy was super-Planckian at some time in the past if it kept following that geodesic. That indicates a breakdown of the particle's description, which is why we should not consider those trajectories for the definition of an initial singularity. When one only considers test particles that do not have this breakdown of their trajectory, it turns out that the on…
The definitions of classical and quantum singularities in general relativity are reviewed. The occurence of quantum mechanical singularities in certain spherically symmetric and cylindrically symmetric (including infinite line mass)spacetimes is considered. A strong repulsive ``potential'' near the classical singularity is shown to turn a classically singular spacetime into a quantum mechanically nonsingular spacetime.
We solve a $1+5$-dimensional cylindrical gravitational-wave solution of the Einstein equation, in which there are two curvature singularities. Then we show that one of the curvature singularities can be removed by an extension of the spacetime. The result exemplifies that the curvature singularity is not always a spacetime singularity; in other words, the curvature singularity cannot serve as a criterion for spacetime singularities.
Numerical simulations of the approach to the singularity in spacetimes with stiff fluid matter are presented here. The spacetimes examined have no symmetries and can be regarded as representing the general behavior of singularities in the presence of such matter. It is found that the singularity is spacelike and that as it is approached, the spacetime dynamics becomes local and non-oscillatory.
We construct a new class of plane-symmetric solutions possessing a curvature singularity which is null and weak, like the spacetime singularity at the Cauchy horizon of spinning (or charged) black holes. We then analyse the stability of this singularity using a rigorous non-perturbative method. We find that within the framework of (linearly-polarized) plane-symmetric spacetimes this type of null weak singularity is locally stable. Generically, the singularity is also scalar-curvature. These observations support the new picture of the null weak singularity inside spinning (or charged) black hol…
We propose a new presentation of the Demiański-Newman (DN) solution of the axisymmetric Einstein equations. We introduce new dimensionless parameters $p$, $q$ and $s$, but keeping the Boyer-Lindquist coordinate transformation used for the Kerr metric in the Ernst method. The family of DN metrics is studied and it is shown that the main role of $s$ is to determine the singularities, which we obtain by calculating the Riemann tensor components and the invariants of curvature. So, $s$ reveals itself as the parameter of the singular rings on the inner ergosphere.
Exact solutions of Einstein equations with null Riemman-Christoffel curvature tensor everywhere, except on a hypersurface, are studied using quantum particles obeying the Klein-Gordon equation. We consider the particular cases when the curvature is represented by a Dirac delta function with support either on a sphere or on a cylinder (spherical and cylindrical shells). In particular, we analyze the necessity of extra boundary conditions on the shells.
We present here a brief review and discussion on recent developments in the theory of spacetime singularities. After mentioning some key motivations on the main ideas and concepts involved, we take the approach that the singularities will be eventually resolved by the quantum gravity effects. Some consequences are indicated when such singularities are visible to far away observers in the universe.
We show that all known naked singularities in spherically symmetric self-similar spacetimes arise as a result of singular initial matter distribution. This is a result of the peculiarity of the coordinate transformation that takes these spacetimes into a separable form. Therefore, these examples of naked singularities are of no apparent consequence to astrophysical observations or theories.
The causal character of singularities is often studied in relation to the existence of naked singularities and the subsequent possible violation of the cosmic censorship conjecture. Generally one constructs a model in the framework of General Relativity described in some specific coordinates and finds an ad hoc procedure to analyze the character of the singularity. In this article we show that the causal character of the zero-areal-radius (R=0) singularity in spherically symmetric models is related with some specific invariants. In this way, if some assumptions are satisfied, one can ascertain…
It has previously been shown [W. Rudnicki, Phys. Lett. A 224, 45 (1996)] that a generic gravitational collapse cannot result in a naked singularity accompanied by closed timelike curves. An important role in this result plays the so-called inextendibility condition, which is required to hold for certain incomplete null geodesics. In this paper, a theorem is proved that establishes some relations between the inextendibility condition and the rate of growth of the Ricci curvature along incomplete null geodesics. This theorem shows that the inextendibility condition may hold for a much more gener…
We review recent work on the existence and nature of cosmological singularities that can be formed during the evolution of generic as well as specific cosmological spacetimes in general relativity. We first discuss necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of geodesically incomplete spacetimes based on a tensorial analysis of the geodesic equations. We then classify the possible singularities of isotropic globally hyperbolic universes using the Bel-Robinson slice energy that closely monitors the asymptotic properties of fields near the singularity. This classification includes all …
We review the mathematical framework necessary to understand the physical content of quantum singularities in static spacetimes. We present many examples of classical singular spacetimes and study their singularities by using wave packets satisfying Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations. We show that in many cases the classical singularities are excluded when tested by quantum particles but unfortunately there are other cases where the singularities remain from the quantum mechanical point of view. When it is possible we also find, for spacetimes where quantum mechanics does not exclude the singula…
Are the classical singularities of general relativistic spacetimes, normally defined by the incompleteness of classical particle paths, still singular if quantum mechanical particles are used instead? This is the question we will attempt to answer for particles obeying the quantum mechanical wave equations for scalar, null vector and spinor particles. The analysis will be restricted to certain static general relativistic spacetimes that classically contain the mildest true classical singularities, quasiregular singularities.
In this paper we present well-posedness results of the wave equation in $H^{1}$ for spacetimes that contain string-like singularities. These results extend a framework able to characterise gravitational singularities as obstruction to the dynamics of test fields rather than point particles. In particular, we discuss spacetimes with cosmic strings and the relation of our results to the Strong Cosmic Censorship Conjecture.
We consider the conformal Einstein equations for polytropic perfect fluid cosmologies which admit an isotropic singularity. For the polytropic index gamma strictly greater than 1 and less than or equal to 2 it is shown that the Cauchy problem for these equations is well-posed, that is to say that solutions exist, are unique and depend smoothly on the data, with data consisting of simply the 3-metric of the singularity. The analogous result for gamma=1 (dust) is obtained when Bianchi type symmetry is assumed.
We examine closed timelike curves (CTCs) and "effective" superluminal travel in a spacetime containing naked line singularities, which we call "wires". Each wire may be straight-line singularity or a ring singularity. The Weak Energy Condition (WEC) is preserved in all well-defined regions of the spacetime. (The singularities themselves are not well-defined, so the WEC is undefined there, but it is never explicitly violated.) Parallel to the wire, "effective" superluminal travel is possible, in that the wire may be used as a shortcut between distant regions of spacetime. Our purpose in present…
The stability of cosmological event and Cauchy horizons of spacetimes associated with plane symmetric domain walls are studied. It is found that both horizons are not stable against perturbations of null fluids and massless scalar fields; they are turned into curvature singularities. These singularities are light-like and strong in the sense that both the tidal forces and distortions acting on test particles become unbounded when theses singularities are approached.
It is shown that there are static spacetimes with timelike curvature singularities which appear completely nonsingular when probed with quantum test particles. Examples include extreme dilatonic black holes and the fundamental string solution. In these spacetimes, the dynamics of quantum particles is well defined and uniquely determined.
The most detailed existing proposal for the structure of spacetime singularities originates in the work of Belinskii, Khalatnikov and Lifshitz. We show rigorously the correctness of this proposal in the case of analytic solutions of the Einstein equations coupled to a scalar field or stiff fluid. More specifically, we prove the existence of a family of spacetimes depending on the same number of free functions as the general solution which have the asymptotics suggested by the Belinskii-Khalatnikov-Lifshitz proposal near their singularities. In these spacetimes a neighbourhood of the singularit…
The order horismos induces the Zeeman $Z$ topology, which is coarser than the Fine Zeeman Topology $F$. The causal curves in a spacetime under $Z$ are piecewise null. $F$ is considered to be the most physical topology in a spacetime manifold $M$, as the group of homeomorphisms of $M$ is isomorphic to the group of homothetic transformations of $M$. $Z$ was used in the Ambient Boundary-Ambient Space cosmological model, in order to show that there is no possibility of formation of spacetime singularities. In this article we question this result, by reviewing the corresponding articles, and we pro…
We investigate the properties of spacetimes resulting from matching together exact solutions using the Darmois matching conditions. In particular we focus on the asymptotically velocity term dominated property (AVTD). We propose a criterion that can be used to test if a spacetime constructed from a matching can be considered AVTD. Using the Cheese Slice universe as an example, we show that a spacetime constructed from a such a matching can inherit the AVTD property from the original spacetimes. Furthermore the singularity resulting from this particular matching is an AVTD singularity.
The locally rotationally symmetric tilted perfect fluid Bianchi type V cosmological model provides examples of future geodesically complete spacetimes that admit a `kinematic singularity' at which the fluid congruence is inextendible but all frame components of the Weyl and Ricci tensors remain bounded. We show that for any positive integer n there are examples of Bianchi type V spacetimes admitting a kinematic singularity such that the covariant derivatives of the Weyl and Ricci tensors up to the n-th order also stay bounded. We briefly discuss singularities in classical spacetimes.
