Understanding Einstein's Weirdest Prediction: Modeling Scalar Field Collapse To Black Holes

Abstract

In this thesis we present the results from numerically simulating the gravitational collapse of a massless, non-interacting, real scalar field. We find a critical parameter for a single family of initial scalar field data to be p* = φ0* = 4:798e10^-5, separating black hole-forming solutions from those that do not. We show evidence to the critical nature of this parameter by examining a host of values of p in the neighborhood of p*. We enumerate future tasks to examine mass-scaling, scale-echoing and universality of this and other families of initial data.