ABSTRACT: The study of gravitational collapse is a subject of great importance, both from an astrophysical and holographic point of view. In this respect, exact solutions can be very helpful but such known solutions are very scarce, especially when considering dynamical processes with rotation. I will identify a setup in which gravitational collapse of rotating matter shells can be addressed with analytic tools, at the expense of going to higher dimensions and considering equal angular momenta spacetimes. The framework for exact and perturbative studies is developed, relying on a thin shell approximation. I will also discuss applications of this machinery to the cosmic censorship conjecture and constructions of stationary solutions describing matter around rotating black holes.
PLACE: Physics Dept. Meeting Room, 2th floor, IST