English

Thermodynamics and collapse of self-gravitating Brownian particles in D dimensions

Statistical Mechanics 2009-11-07 v1 Astrophysics

Abstract

We address the thermodynamics (equilibrium density profiles, phase diagram, instability analysis...) and the collapse of a self-gravitating gas of Brownian particles in D dimensions, in both canonical and microcanonical ensembles. In the canonical ensemble, we derive the analytic form of the density scaling profile which decays as f(x)=x^{-\alpha}, with alpha=2. In the microcanonical ensemble, we show that f decays as f(x)=x^{-\alpha_{max}}, where \alpha_{max} is a non-trivial exponent. We derive exact expansions for alpha_{max} and f in the limit of large D. Finally, we solve the problem in D=2, which displays rather rich and peculiar features.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0204303,
  title  = {Thermodynamics and collapse of self-gravitating Brownian particles in D dimensions},
  author = {C. Sire and P. -H. Chavanis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0204303},
  year   = {2009}
}