Related papers: Problems of Collisional Stellar Dynamics
Chandrasekhar's most important contribution to stellar dynamics was the concept of dynamical friction. I briefly review that work, then discuss some implications of Chandrasekhar's theory of gravitational encounters for motion in galactic…
An introductory exposition of Chandrasekhar's gravitational dynamical friction, appropriate for an undergraduate class in mec hanics, is presented. This friction results when a massive particle moving through a ``sea'' of much lighter star…
The motion of a point like object of mass $M$ passing through the background potential of massive collisionless particles ($m << M$) suffers a steady deceleration named dynamical friction. In his classical work, Chandrasekhar assumed a…
Dynamical friction is an important phenomena in stellar dynamics resulting in the slowing down of a test particle upon many two-body scatters with background particles. Chandrasekhar's original formulation, developed for idealized infinite…
Dynamical friction is a fundamental and important phenomenon in astrophysics. The Chandrasekhar formula is a well-known analytical estimation of the effect. However, current astrophysicists have realized that the formula is not correct in…
Stellar dynamics occupied Chandrasekhar's interest for a brief interlude between his more prolonged studies of stellar structure and radiative transfer. This paper traces the history of one of his ideas -- namely, that the shape of the…
Fifteen years after the discovery of dynamical friction by Chandrasekhar, Michel Henon attempts to solve the longstanding problem of the divergence of the friction suffered by the perturber and caused by the most distant cluster stars. His…
We extend the classical formulation of the dynamical friction effect on a test star by Chandrasekhar to the case of relativistic velocities and velocity distributions also accounting for post-Newtonian corrections to the gravitational…
The motion of a point like object of mass M passing through the background potential of massive collisionless particles (m << M) suffers a steady deceleration named dynamic friction. In his classical work, Chandrasekhar assumed a Maxwellian…
We discuss dynamical friction in an $N$-body system in the presence of tidal interactions caused by a distant external source. Using the distant tide approximation, we develop a perturbation scheme for the calculation of dynamical friction…
A longstanding problem in galactic simulations is to resolve the dynamical friction (DF) force acting on massive black hole particles when their masses are comparable to or less than the background simulation particles. Many sub-grid models…
Dynamical friction is the process responsible for matter transport toward the inner regions of galaxies in form of massive objects, like intermediate mass black holes, globular clusters and small satellite galaxies. While very bright…
Dynamical friction leads to an orbital decay of massive objects like young compact star clusters or Massive Black Holes in central regions of galaxies. The dynamical friction force can be well approximated by Chandrasekhar's standard…
We study the dynamical response of extended systems, hosts, to smaller systems, satellites, orbiting around the hosts using extremely high-resolution N-body simulations with up to one billion particles. This situation corresponds to minor…
Stellar systems - star clusters, galaxies, dark matter haloes, and so on - are ubiquitous characters in the evolutionary tale of our Universe. This tutorial article is an introduction to the collective dynamical evolution of the very large…
In this paper, I test by numerical simulations the results of Del Popolo & Gambera (1998),dealing with the extension of Chandrasekhar and von Neumann's analysis of the statistics of the gravitational field to systems in which particles…
In the framework of the fluctuation-dissipation approach to dynamical friction, we derive an expression giving the orbital energy exchange experienced by a compound body as it moves interacting with a non homogeneous discrete background.…
I argue that the widely adopted framework of stellar dynamics survived since 1940s, is not fitting the current knowledge on non-linear systems. Borrowed from plasma physics when several fundamental features of perturbed non-linear systems…
We study the effect of Chandrasekhar and Holstmark's distribution of field fluctuations on the dynamics of N-body systems interacting via Coulomb or Newton gravitational force. We develop an approach based on statistical dynamics first…
Theories of how galaxies, the fundamental constituents of large-scale structure, form and evolve have undergone a dramatic paradigm shift in the last few decades. Earlier views were of rapid, early collapse and formation of basic…