We give a characterization of the central shell-focusing curvature singularity that can form in the spherical gravitational collapse of a bounded matter distribution obeying the dominant energy condition. This characterization is based on the limiting behaviour of the mass function in the neighbourhood of the singularity. Depending on the rate of growth of the mass as a function of the area rad...

We construct the dual supergravity description of strongly coupled, large N , eightsupercharge gauge theories with fundamental hypermultiplets at points on the mixed CoulombHiggs branch. With certain assumptions about unknown couplings of D-branes to supergravity, this construction gives the correct metric on the hypermultiplet (Higgs-branch) component the moduli space, which decouples from the...

We consider here the effects of a non-vanishing cosmological term on the final fate of a spherical inhomogeneous collapsing dust cloud. It is shown that depending on the nature of the initial data from which the collapse evolves, and for a positive value of the cosmological constant, we can have a globally regular evolution where a bounce develops within the cloud. We characterize precisely the...

The gravitational collapse of a thick cylindrical shell of dust matter is investigated. It is found that a spacetime singularity forms on the symmetry axis and that it is necessarily naked, i.e., observable in principle. We propose a physically reasonable boundary condition at this naked singularity to construct the solution including its causal future. This boundary condition enables us to con...

A lattice metric singularity occurs when unit cells defining two (or more) lattices yield the identical set of unique calculated d-spacings. The existence of such singularities, therefore, has a practical and theoretical impact on the indexing of powder patterns. For example, in experimental practice an indexing program may find only the lower symmetry member of a singularity. Obviously, it is ...

The gravitational collapse of a cylindrical thick shell of dust matter is investigated. A spacetime singularity forms at the symmetry axis and it is necessarily naked, i.e., observable in principle. We propose a physically reasonable boundary condition at the naked singularity to construct the solution including its causal future. This boundary condition enables us to construct the unique conti...