CAN WE SEE NAKED SINGULARITIES?

Abstract

We study singularities which can form in a spherically symmetric gravitational collapse of a general matter field obeying weak energy condition. We show that null naked singularities that form in such a collapse can never be observed. No energy can come out of these singularities; thus they will have no physical consequences outside. As this happens for any null singularity, we do not need to assume specific form of matter and establish role of initial data. Hence our result is very general.