Critical gravitational collapse of a massive complex scalar field

Understand

We study the critical collapse of a massive complex scalar field coupled minimally to gravity.

• Taking as initial data a simple gaussian pulse with a shape similar to the harmonic ansatz for boson stars, we obtain critical collapse of type type I and II when varying the gaussian width $\sigma$.
• For $\sigma \leq 0.5$ we find collapse of type II with a critical exponent $\gamma=0.38\pm0.01$ and an echoing period $\Delta=3.4\pm0.1$.
• These values are very similar to the known results for a real massless scalar field.