• DOI:10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.14.57
• Corpus ID: 116755736

Gravitational collapse and spacetime singularities

@inproceedings{Penrose1965GravitationalCA,
  title={Gravitational collapse and spacetime singularities},
  author={Roger Penrose},
  year={1965}
}

• R. Penrose
• Published 18 January 1965
• Physics

accompanied by a violent release of energy, possible in the form of gravitational radiation. The detailed mathematical discussion of such situations is difficult since the full complexity of general relativity is required. Consequently, most exact calculations concerned with the implications of gravitational collapse have employed the simplifying assumption of spherical symmetry. Unfortunately, this precludes any detailed discussion of gravitational radiation – which requires at least a quadripole structure. The general situation with regard to a spherically symmetrical body is well known [2]. For a sufficiently great mass, there is no final equilibrium state. When sufficiently thermal energy has been radiated away, the body contracts and continues to contract until a physical singularity is encountered at 0  r . As measured by local comoving observers, the body passes within its Schwarzschild radius m r 2  . (The densities at which this happens need not be enormously high if the total mass is large enough). To an outside observer the contraction to m r 2  appears to make infinite time. Nevertheless, the existence of a singularity presents a serious problem for any interior region.