Related papers: High performance computing for classic gravitation…
The modern study of the dynamics of stellar systems requires the use of high-performance computers. Indeed, an accurate modelization of the structure and evolution of self-gravitating systems like planetary systems, open clusters, globular…
Gravitational N-body simulations, that is numerical solutions of the equations of motions for N particles interacting gravitationally, are widely used tools in astrophysics, with applications from few body or solar system like systems all…
Astrophysical systems differ often in two points from classical thermodynamical systems: 1.) They are open and 2.) gravity is a dominant factor. Both modifies the homogeneous equilibrium structure, known from classical thermodynamics. In…
Let a number, N, of particles interact classically through Newton's Laws of Motion and Newton's inverse square Law of Gravitation. The resulting equations of motion provide an approximate mathematical model with numerous applications in…
Astrophysical Challenges which demand the solution of the one million (or more) gravitating body problem are briefly discussed for the fields of cosmology, galactic nuclei and globular star clusters. Results from the classical three-body…
We describe the astrophysical and numerical basis of N-body simulations, both of collisional stellar systems (dense star clusters and galactic centres) and collisionless stellar dynamics (galaxies and large-scale structure). We explain and…
The application of high end computing to astrophysical problems, mainly in the galactic environment, is under development since many years at the Dep. of Physics of Sapienza Univ. of Roma. The main scientific topic is the physics of self…
Simulations of purely self-gravitating N-body systems are often used in astrophysics and cosmology to study the collisionless limit of such systems. Their results for macroscopic quantities should then converge well for sufficiently large…
We review what has been learned recently using N-body simulations about the evolution of globular clusters. While simulations of star clusters have become more realistic, and now include the evolution of single and binary stars, the…
Internal dynamical evolution can drive stellar systems into states of high central density. For many star clusters and galactic nuclei, the time scale on which this occurs is significantly less than the age of the universe. As a result,…
The subjects and key questions faced by computational astrophysics using N-body simulations are discussed in the fields of globular star cluster dynamics, galactic nuclei and cosmological structure formation. After a comparison of the…
On large-scales, comparable to the horizon, the observable clustering properties of galaxies are affected by various general relativistic effects. To calculate these effects one needs to consistently solve for the metric, densities and…
The recent availability of special purpose computers designed for calculating gravitational interactions of N-bodies at extremely high speed has provided the means to model globular clusters on a star-by-star basis for the first time. By…
Cosmological N-Body simulations have become an essential tool for studying formation of large scale structure. These simulations are computationally challenging even though the available computing power gets better every year. A number of…
Stellar dynamics is almost unreasonably well suited for an implementation in terms of special-purpose hardware. Unlike the case of molecular dynamics, stellar dynamics deals exclusively with a long-range force, gravity, which leads to a…
The conservation of energy, linear momentum and angular momentum are important drivers for our physical understanding of the evolution of the Universe. These quantities are also conserved in Newton's laws of motion under gravity…
I review recent progress from $N$-body simulations in our understanding of the secular evolution of isolated disk galaxies. I describe some of the recent controversies in the field which have been commonly attributed to numerics. The…
Dense star clusters are spectacular self-gravitating stellar systems in our Galaxy and across the Universe - in many respects. They populate disks and spheroids of galaxies as well as almost every galactic center. In massive elliptical…
Special high-accuracy direct force summation N-body algorithms and their relevance for the simulation of the dynamical evolution of star clusters and other gravitating N-body systems in astrophysics are presented, explained and compared…
In this talk we discuss some of the main theoretical problems in the understanding of the statistical properties of gravity. By means of N-body simulations we approach the problem of understanding the r\^ole of gravity in the clustering of…