Related papers: Dynamical Friction in Cuspy Galaxies
In this paper we treat the problem of the dynamical friction decay of a massive object moving in an elliptical galaxy with a cuspidal inner distribution of the mass density. We present results obtained by both self-consistent, direct…
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…
Numerical simulations of the dynamical friction suffered by a star cluster near the Galactic center have been performed with a parallelized tree code. Gerhard (2001) has suggested that dynamical friction, which causes a cluster to lose…
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…
The distribution of luminous radio galaxies in galaxy clusters has been observed to be concentrated in the inner region. We consider the role of dynamical friction of massive galaxies ($M\sim 10^{12.5}$ M$_{\odot}$), assuming them to be…
We present a novel method to detect the effects of dynamical friction in observed galaxy clusters. Following accretion into clusters, massive satellite galaxies will backsplash to systematically smaller radii than less massive satellites,…
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…
Two puzzles associated with open clusters have attracted a lot of attention -- their formation, with densities and velocity dispersions that are not too different from those of the star forming regions in the Galaxy, given that the observed…
The main goal of this paper is to set up a numerical laboratory for the study of the slow evolution of the density and of the pressure tensor profiles of an otherwise collisionless stellar system, as a result of the interactions with a…
Many Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxies are found in the Galactic halo along great circles in the sky. Some of these stellar systems are thought to be the fragments of larger parent galaxies which have once intruded into and were torn…
We revisit the notion that galaxy motions can efficiently heat intergalactic gas in the central regions of clusters through dynamical friction. For plausible values of the galaxy mass-to-light ratio, the heating rate is comparable to the…
We use fully self-consistent N-body simulations of barred galaxies to show that dynamical friction from a dense dark matter halo dramatically slows the rotation rate of bars. Our result supports previous theoretical predictions for a bar…
We present a preliminary analysis of the effect of dynamical friction on the orbits of part of the globular clusters in our Galaxy. Our study considers an anisotropic velocity dispersion field approximated using the results of studies in…
The dynamical friction timescale for globular clusters to sink to the center of a dwarf elliptical galaxy (dE) is significantly less than a Hubble time if the halos have King-model or isothermal profiles and the globular clusters formed…
The splashback radius is one popular method of constraining the size of galaxy clusters, often measured through the logarithmic derivative of the galaxy number density profile. However, measuring the splashback radius through the galaxy…
The analytical generalization of the classical dynamical friction formula (derived under the assumption that all the field particles have the same mass) to the case in which the masses of the field particles are distributed with a mass…
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…
Recent observations have been discovering new ultra-faint dwarf galaxies as small as $\sim20~{\rm pc}$ in half-light radius and $\sim3~{\rm km~s^{-1}}$ in line-of-sight velocity dispersion. In these galaxies, dynamical friction on a star…
We show that bars in galaxy models having halos of moderate density and a variety of velocity distributions all experience a strong drag from dynamical friction unless the halo has large angular momentum in the same sense as the disk. The…
We derive a formalism, within the theory of linear response, for the analysis of the interaction of a satellite (the perturber) with a spherical galaxy whose equilibrium is described by a one-particle distribution function. We compute the…