Critical phenomena in gravitational collapse have been a relatively recent and interesting development in the established field of general relativity. Due to the difficulty of the problem, most of the work on the subject is done using numerical methods. In my study, I approach critical collapse of a massless scalar field using analytical methods. I consider evolution of scalar field configurations close to a certain continuously self-similar solution at the threshold of black hole formation, and analyze their departure from that solution at the later times using perturbative methods. In the framework of this analytical model, one can observe (and test) important general features of the critical collapse, such as universality of the critical solution with respect to initial data, mass scaling in black hole production, and formation of discretely self-similar structure in the course of the field evolution.
展开▼
