Critical collapse of rotating radiation fluids

Abstract

We present results from the first fully relativistic simulations of the critical collapse of rotating radiation fluids. We observe critical scaling both in subcritical evolutions, in which case the fluid disperses to infinity and leaves behind flat space, and in supercritical evolutions that lead to the formation of black holes. We measure the mass and angular momentum of these black holes, and find that both show critical scaling with critical exponents that are consistent with perturbative results. The critical exponents are universal; they are not affected by angular momentum, and are independent of the direction in which the critical curve, which separates subcritical from supercritical evolutions in our two-dimensional parameter space, is crossed. In particular, these findings suggest that the angular momentum decreases more rapidly than the square of the mass, so that, as criticality is approached, the collapse leads to the formation of a non-spinning black hole. We also demonstrate excellent agreement of our numerical data with new closed-form extensions of power-law scalings that describe the mass and angular momentum of rotating black holes formed close to criticality.