Abstract
A long standing conjecture by Belinskii, Lifshitz, and Khalatnikov that the singularity in generic gravitational collapse is locally oscillatory is tested numerically in vacuum, U(1) symmetric cosmological spacetimes on If the velocity term dominated (VTD) solution to Einstein’s equations is substituted into the Hamiltonian for the full Einstein evolution equations, one term is found to grow exponentially. This generates a prediction that oscillatory behavior involving this term and another (which the VTD solution causes to decay exponentially) should be observed in the approach to the singularity. Numerical simulations strongly support this prediction.
- Received 30 April 1998
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.58.064023
©1998 American Physical Society