Related papers: Dynamical friction in an isentropic gas
The supersonic motion of gravitating objects through a gaseous medium constitutes a classical problem in theoretical astrophysics. Its application covers a broad range of objects and scales from planets up to galaxies. Especially the…
We study the force of dynamical friction acting on a gravitating point mass that travels through an extended, isothermal gas. This force is well established in the hypersonic limit, but remains less understood in the subsonic regime. Using…
An extended gravitational object embedded in a parent system comprised of gas and collisionless particles may undergo both dynamical friction (DF) and mass loss by tidal forces. If the object is compact enough, it can increase its mass…
The dynamical friction force experienced by a massive gravitating body moving through a gaseous medium is modified by sufficiently strong large-scale magnetic fields. Using linear perturbation theory, we calculate the structure of the wake…
When a gravitating point mass moves subsonically through a magnetized and isothermal medium, the dynamical structure of the flow is studied far from the mass using a perturbation analysis. Analytical solutions for the first-order density…
Any gravitating mass traversing a relatively sparse gas experiences a retarding force created by its disturbance of the surrounding medium. In a previous contribution (Lee & Stahler 2011), we determined this dynamical friction force when…
Dynamical friction arises from the interaction of a perturber and the gravitational wake it excites in the ambient medium. This interaction is usually derived assuming that the perturber has a constant velocity. In realistic situations,…
We compute the dynamical friction on a small perturber moving through an inviscid fluid, i.e., a superfluid. Crucially, we account for the tachyonic gravitational mass for sound waves, reminiscent of the Jeans instability of the fluid,…
Using time-dependent linear perturbation theory, we evaluate the dynamical friction force on a massive perturber M_p traveling at velocity V through a uniform gaseous medium of density rho_0 and sound speed c_s. This drag force acts in the…
We investigate the gravitational wake due to, and dynamical friction on, a perturber moving on a circular orbit in a uniform gaseous medium using a semi-analytic method. This work is a straightforward extension of Ostriker (1999) who…
The drag force experienced by astronomical objects moving through gaseous media (gas dynamical friction) plays a crucial role in their orbital evolution. Ostriker (1999) derived a formula for gas dynamical friction by linear analysis, and…
The dynamical friction force experienced by a body moving at relativistic speed in a gaseous medium is examined. This force, which arises due to the gravitational interaction of the body with its own gravitationally-induced wake, is…
Using high-resolution, two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, we investigate nonlinear gravitational responses of gas to, and the resulting drag force on, a very massive perturber M_p moving at velocity V_p through a uniform gaseous…
We analyse how drag forces modify the orbits of objects moving through extended gaseous distributions. We consider how hydrodynamic (surface area) drag forces and dynamical friction (gravitational) drag forces drive the evolution of orbital…
The dynamical friction experienced by a body moving in a gaseous medium is different from the friction in the case of a collisionless stellar system. Here we consider the orbital evolution of a gravitational perturber inside a gaseous…
We present a study of equal-mass hyperbolic encounters, embedded in a uniform gaseous medium. Using linear perturbation theory, we calculate the density wakes excited by these perturbers and compute the resulting forces exerted on them by…
The process of momentum and energy transfer between a massive body and a background medium it is moving through is known as dynamical friction (DF). It is key to our understanding of many astrophysical systems. We present a series of…
We study dynamical friction in interacting relativistic systems with arbitrary mean free paths and medium constituent masses. Our novel framework recovers the known limits of ideal gas and ideal fluid when the mean free path goes to…
A compact object moving relative to surrounding gas accretes material and perturbs the density of gas in its vicinity. In the classical picture of Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion, the perturbation takes the form of an overdense wake behind…
Using time-dependent linear theory, we investigate the morphology of the gravitational wake induced by a binary, whose center of mass moves at velocity Vcm against a uniform background of gas. For simplicity, we assume that the binary's…