*Special Seminar*
Dr. Andrei Frolov
Title: Is It Really
Naked? On Cosmic Censorship in String Theory
Recently, Hertog, Horowitz, and Maeda argued that cosmic censorship
is generically violated in string theory (hep-th/0310054). The counterexample
consists of an initial data set which is known to form a singularity and an
argument that it cannot form a black hole in the collapse. However, the
complete field dynamics and the global structure of the resulting spacetimes is not known
analytically, and the argument has been called into question by several
authors. I investigate the possibility of cosmic censorship violation using a
characteristic double-null code, which penetrates horizons and is capable of
resolving the spacetime all the way to the
singularity. In high-resolution numerical simulations of the evolution of
negative mass initial scalar field profiles, no instances of formation of naked
singularity is seen. Instead, numerical evidence indicates that black holes
form in the collapse.