On gravitational collapse and cosmic censorship for collisionless matter

Abstract

The weak cosmic censorship conjecture is a central open problem in classical general relativity. Under the assumption of spherical symmetry, Christodoulou has investigated the conjecture for two different matter models; a scalar field and dust. He has shown that the conjecture holds true for a scalar field but that it is violated in the case of dust. The outcome of the conjecture is thus sensitive to which model is chosen to describe matter. Neither a scalar field nor dust are realistic matter models. Collisionless matter, or Vlasov matter, is a simple matter model but can be considered to be realistic in the sense that it is used by astrophysicists. The present status on the weak cosmic censorship conjecture for the Einstein–Vlasov system is reviewed here.