Dynamics of homogeneous scalar fields with general self-interaction potentials: cosmological and gravitational collapse models

The general relativistic dynamics of a wide class of self-interacting, self-gravitating homogeneous scalar fields models is analyzed. The class is characterized by certain general conditions on the scalar field potential, which include both asymptotically polynomial and exponential behaviors. Within this class, we show that the generic evolution is always divergent in a finite time, and then make use of this result to construct cosmological models as well as radiating collapsing star models of the Vaidya type. It turns out that blackholes are generically formed in such models.