Gravitational collapse in 2+1 dimensional AdS spacetime

We present results of numerical simulations of the formation of black holes from the gravitational collapse of a massless, minimally coupled scalar field in 2+1 dimensional, axially symmetric, anti–de Sitter (AdS) spacetime. The geometry exterior to the event horizon approaches the BTZ solution, showing no evidence of scalar “hair.” To study the interior structure we implement a variant of black-hole excision, which we call singularity excision. We find that interior to the event horizon a strong, spacelike curvature singularity develops. We study the critical behavior at the threshold of black hole formation, and find a continuously self-similar solution and corresponding mass-scaling exponent of approximately 1.2. The critical solution is universal to within a phase that is related to the angle deficit of the spacetime.