Late-time evolution of nonlinear gravitational collapse

We study numerically the fully nonlinear gravitational collapse of a self-gravitating, minimally coupled, massless scalar field in spherical symmetry. Our numerical code is based on double-null coordinates and on free evolution of the metric functions: The evolution equations are integrated numerically, whereas the constraint equations are only monitored. The numerical code is stable (unlike recent claims) and second-order accurate. We use this code to study the late-time asymptotic behavior at fixed r (outside the black hole), along the event horizon, and along future null infinity. In all three asymptotic regions we find that, after the decay of the quasinormal modes, the perturbations are dominated by inverse power-law tails. The corresponding power indices agree with the integer values predicted by linearized theory. We also study the case of a charged black hole nonlinearly perturbed by a (neutral) self-gravitating scalar field, and find the same type of behavior—i.e., quasinormal modes followed by inverse power-law tails, with the same indices as in the uncharged case.