Temperature Evolution During Radiative Gravitational Collapse

We investigate the evolution of the temperature profile of a Friedmann-like collapsing sphere undergoing dissipative gravitational collapse in the form of a radial heat flux. We further consider the behavior of the star close to quasi-static equilibrium (weak heat flux approximation) and show that relaxational effects cannot be ignored. It is explicitly shown that extended irreversible thermodynamics predict a higher temperature at all interior points of the stellar configuration compared to the Eckart theory. These results carry over to the weak heat flux approximation with the magnitude of the temperature being lower than the full radiating model. The stability of the model after its departure from equilibrium is studied by considering the behavior of the control parameter throughout the stellar interior.