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Critical collapse of scalar fields beyond axisymmetry

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Abstract

We investigate non-spherically symmetric, scalar field collapse of a family of initial data consisting of a spherically symmetric profile with a deformation proportional to the real part of the spherical harmonic \(Y_{21}(\theta ,\varphi )\). Independent of the strength of the anisotropy in the data, we find that supercritical collapse yields a black hole mass scaling \(M_h \propto (p-p^*)^\gamma \) with \(\gamma \approx 0.37\), a value remarkably close to the critical exponent obtained by Choptuik in his pioneering study in spherical symmetry. We also find hints of discrete self-similarity. However, the collapse experiments are not sufficiently close to the critical solution to unequivocally claim that the detected periodicity is from critical collapse echoing.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Matt Choptuik for helpful discussions and comments. Work supported by NSF grants 0653443, 0855892, 0914553, 0941417, 0903973, 0955825. Computations at Teragrid TG-PHY120016 and Georgia Tech FoRCE cluster. JH gratefully acknowledges the NSF for financial support from Grants PHY-1305730 and PHY-0969855.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Relativistic Astrophysics and School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    James Healy & Pablo Laguna

  2. Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation, School of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, 85 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY, 14623, USA

    James Healy

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  1. James Healy
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  2. Pablo Laguna
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Correspondence to Pablo Laguna.

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Healy, J., Laguna, P. Critical collapse of scalar fields beyond axisymmetry. Gen Relativ Gravit 46, 1722 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10714-014-1722-2

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