OPTICAL SCALARS AND SINGULARITY AVOIDANCE IN SPHERICAL SPACETIMES

Consider a spherically symmetric spacelike slice through a spacetime. One can derive universal bounds on any such slice assuming that the ma tter sources satisfy an energy condition and;that the Slice be regular . These bounds are used to derive the horizon formation conditions and to show how a regular spacelike slicing may avoid singularities. The results hold true even when the matter has a distribution on a shell o r blows up at the origin so as to give a conical singularity.