IOP PUBLISHING CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM GRAVITY Class. Quantum Grav. 27 (2010) 165019 (9pp) doi:10.1088/0264-9381/27/16/165019 Examining gravitational collapse with test scalar fields

Numerical simulations are performed of a test scalar field in a spacetime undergoing gravitational collapse. The behavior of the scalar field near the singularity is examined and implications for generic singularities are discussed. In particular, our example is the first confirmation of the Belinskii, Khalatnikov and Lifschitz (BKL) conjecture for an asymptotically flat spacetime. PACS numbers: 04.20.Dw, 04.25.D−, 04.25.dc, 04.40.Nr 1