CRITICAL-BEHAVIOR AND UNIVERSALITY IN GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE OF A CHARGED SCALAR FIELD

We summarize results from a study of spherically symmetric collapse of a charged (complex) massless scalar field. We present an analytic arg ument which conjectures the generalization of the mass-scaling relatio n and echoing phenomena, originally discovered by Choptuik, for the ch arged case. Furthermore, we study the behavior of the self-similar cri tical solution under external perturbations - addition of a cosmologic al constant ii and under a variation of the charge coupling constant e . Finally, we study the scaling relation of the black-hole charge. Usi ng an analytic argument, we conjecture that black holes of infinitesim al mass are neutral or obey the relation Q(BH)much less than M(BH). We verify our predictions with numerical results.