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Approaching The Singularity In Gowdy Universes, Bartlett Douglas Edmonds Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

It has been shown that the cosmic censorship conjecture holds for polarized Gowdy spacetimes. In the more general, unpolarized case, however, the question remains open. It is known that cylindrically symmetric dust can collapse to form a naked singularity. Since Gowdy universes comprise gravitational waves that are locally cylindrically symmetric, perhaps these waves can collapse onto a symmetry axis and create a naked singularity. It is known that in the case of cylindrical symmetry, event horizons will not form under gravitational collapse, so the formation of a singularity on the symmetry axis would be a violation of the cosmic censorship …