Singularities in gravitational collapse with radial pressure (Q1611345)

In this paper the authors present a new solution of spherical dust collapse with non-vanishing radial pressure and vanishing tangential stresses. This solution is exact for \(\gamma=-1\) and \(\gamma=0.\) For other values of \(\gamma \in (-1,1),\) it asymptotes the exact solution in the \(r=0\) limit, which is the region of interest, where the curvature singularity forms. In particular, the solution can be made to obey Einstein's equations to arbitrarily small error, by considering an arbitrarily small neighborhood of \(r=0.\) In this way, the role of radial pressure -- as opposed to the combined contribution of radial and tangential stresses, as in the perfect fluid case -- is isolated and its effects on singularity formation and structure become clear. For configurations with radial pressure \(\Pi\) linearly proportional to the density \((\Pi= \gamma \rho)\), that can end up in either a black hole or a naked singularity, an increase in radial pressure leads to a decrease in the parameter space area for naked singularities. In the initial two-parameter data space (radial pressure vs. density), visible singularities are shown to exist for the entire range of the adiabatic index \(\gamma.\) This shows that, whereas radial pressure can cover singularities that would otherwise be visible, it cannot, by itself prevent the formation of visible singularities.