Abstract

In this talk, we present recent results concerning the spherical collapse of self-gravitating charged scalar fields. The main result gives a complete characterization of the future boundary of spacetime, providing a starting point for studying the cosmic censorship conjectures. As a simple corollary, we show that scenarios of `naked singularity’ formation by means of `super-charging’ (near-)extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black holes are impossible. We will also discuss results on trapped surface formation, Cauchy horizon stability and spacetime extendibility. The main difficulty in delimiting the boundary is isolated in proving a suitable global extension principle which effectively excludes a broad class of singularity formation. This suggests a new notion of `strongly tame’ matter models which we introduce. The boundary characterization given extends to any such `strongly tame’ Einstein-matter system.