  We study the collapse towards the gravitational radius of a macroscopic
spherical thick shell surrounding an inner massive core. This overall
electrically neutral macroshell is composed by many nested delta-like massive
microshells which can bear non-zero electric charge, and a possibly non-zero
cosmological constant is also included. The dynamics of the shells is described
by means of Israel's (Lanczos) junction conditions for singular hypersurfaces
and, adopting a Hartree (mean field) approach, an effective Hamiltonian for the
motion of each microshell is derived which allows to check the stability of the
matter composing the macroshell. We end by briefly commenting on the quantum
effects which may arise from the extension of our classical treatment to the
semiclassical level.

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;Astrophysics