Necessary Conditions for Apparent Horizons and Singularities in Spherically Symmetric Initial Data

We establish necessary conditions for the appearance of both apparent horizons and singularities in the initial data of spherically symmetric general relativity when spacetime is foliated extrinsically. When the dominant energy condition is satisfied these conditions assume a particularly simple form. Let ρMax be the maximum value of the energy density and l the radial measure of its support. If ρMaxl 2 is bounded from above by some numerical constant, the initial data cannot possess an apparent horizon. This constant does not depend sensitively on the gauge. An analogous inequality is obtained for singularities with some larger constant. The derivation exploits Poincaré type inequalities to bound integrals over certain spatial scalars. A novel approach to the construction of analogous necessary conditions for general initial data is suggested. Typeset using REVTEX ∗ [email protected] † [email protected]