PreprintarXiv licencearXiv
Outer trapped surface formation from gravitational waves collision
Abstract
We give a new rigorous construction of outer trapped surface formation in smooth vacuum spacetimes without symmetry assumptions. The outer trapped surface is produced by the collision of two transversely localized, nearly plane-fronted gravitational waves described by short pulse data. The outer trapped surface is obtained by joining two smooth pieces along a curve with their future-directed outer null normals matching continuously. The incompleteness of the maximal future development is then established by adapting Penrose's original argument. This construction is inspired by Penrose's argument in constructing a marginally outer trapped surface in the collision of two ultra-relativistic particles modeled by the Aichelburg--Sexl solution.
Related
- Formation of Trapped Surfaces for the Einstein-Euler System
- Dynamical BEC formation and vanishing entropy for trapped bosons in non-relativistic QED via nonlinear resonance cascades
- Outer automorphisms of HNN extensions of abelian groups
- Property R∞ for Artin and Coxeter groups whose outer automorphisms are length-preserving
- Quantitative spectral rigidity for negatively curved manifolds and Outer Space
BibTeX
@misc{li2026outer,
title = {{Outer trapped surface formation from gravitational waves collision}},
author = {Junbin Li},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.26320},
eprint = {2610.26320},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26320},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Outer trapped surface formation from gravitational waves collision
AU - Junbin Li
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.26320
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26320
AB - We give a new rigorous construction of outer trapped surface formation in smooth vacuum spacetimes without symmetry assumptions. The outer trapped surface is produced by the collision of two transversely localized, nearly plane-fronted gravitational waves described by short pulse data. The outer trapped surface is obtained by joining two smooth pieces along a curve with their future-directed outer null normals matching continuously. The incompleteness of the maximal future development is then established by adapting Penrose's original argument. This construction is inspired by Penrose's argument in constructing a marginally outer trapped surface in the collision of two ultra-relativistic particles modeled by the Aichelburg--Sexl solution.
ER -