Choptuik, Matthew W. and Hirschmann, Eric W. and Liebling, Steven L. and Pretorius, Frans (2003) Critical collapse of the massless scalar field in axisymmetry. Physical Review D, 68 (4). Art. No. 044007. ISSN 0556-2821. http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:CHOprd03b
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We present the results from a numerical study of critical gravitational collapse of axisymmetric distributions of massless scalar field energy. We find threshold behavior that can be described by the spherically symmetric critical solution with axisymmetric perturbations. However, we see indications of a growing, nonspherical mode about the spherically symmetric critical solution. The effect of this instability is that the small asymmetry present in what would otherwise be a spherically symmetric self-similar solution grows. This growth continues until a bifurcation occurs and two distinct regions form on the axis, each resembling the spherically symmetric self-similar solution. The existence of a nonspherical unstable mode is in conflict with previous perturbative results, and we therefore discuss whether such a mode exists in the continuum limit, or whether we are instead seeing a marginally stable mode that is rendered unstable by numerical approximation.
|Additional Information:||©2003 The American Physical Society. Received 3 May 2003; published 7 August 2003. The authors would like to thank Kristin Schleich, Bill Unruh, and Jim Varah for valuable conversations. The authors gratefully acknowledge research support from CIAR, NSERC, NSF PHY-9900644, NSF PHY-0099568, NSF PHY-0139782, NSF PHY-0139980, Southampton College, the Izaak Walton Killam Fund, and Caltech’s Richard Chase Tolman Fund. The simulations shown here were performed on UBC’s vn cluster (supported by CFI and BCKDF), and the MACI cluster at the University of Calgary (supported by CFI and ASRA).|
|Subject Keywords:||GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE; CRITICAL-BEHAVIOR; RADIATION FLUID; UNIVERSALITY; EQUATIONS|
|Usage Policy:||No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.|
|Deposited By:||Tony Diaz|
|Deposited On:||16 Jan 2007|
|Last Modified:||26 Dec 2012 09:29|
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