81$ obtained in the numerical analysis of Husain and Olivier [@HO] from the scaling behavior of the apparent horizon radius. Our value $\gamma = 0.4$, while significantly smaller than these two conflicting estimates, is of the order of the theoretical value $\gamma = 1/2$ derived either from the analysis of dust-ring collapse [@ps], of black hole formation from point particle collisions [@bir], or of the $J = 0$ to $J \neq 0$ transition of the BTZ black hole [@kg].

It is worth mentioning here that, even though they were obtained for a vanishing cosmological constant and thus solve the $\L\neq 0$ equations only near the singularity, the Garfinkle CSS solutions are, for the particular value (chosen in order to better fit the numerical curves) $c = (7/8)^{1/2} \simeq 0.935$, in good agreement [@gar] with the numerical results of [@CP] at an intermediate time. The fact that this value is close to 1 suggests that the $c = 1$ CSS solution (\[gar5\]) approximately describes near-critical collapse at intermediate times. If this the case, then it would not be surprising if its late-time limit, our new CSS solution Eq. (\[crit0\]), gives a good description of exactly critical collapse near the singularity. A fuller understanding of the relationship between the numerically observed near-critical collapse and these various $\L = 0$ CSS solutions could be achieved by extending them to $\L < 0$, as done in the present work for the special solution (\[crit1\]).

[20]{}

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