Related papers: Particle number dependence in the non-linear evolu…
Cosmological N-body simulations aim to calculate the non-linear gravitational growth of structures via particle dynamics. A crucial problem concerns the setting-up of the initial particle distribution, as standard theories of galaxy…
Using the Ricci and scalar curvatures of the configuration manifold of gravitational N-body systems, we study the exponential instability in their trajectories. It is found that the exponentiation time-scale for isotropic Plummer spheres…
We revisit the r\^{o}le of discreteness and chaos in the dynamics of self-gravitating systems by means of $N$-body simulations with active and frozen potentials, starting from spherically symmetric stationary states and considering the…
Using controlled numerical N-body experiments, we show how, in the collapse dynamics of an initially cold and uniform distribution of particles with a generic asymmetric shape, finite $N$ fluctuations and perturbations induced by the…
We present the problematic of controlling the discreteness effects in cosmological N-body simulations. We describe a perturbative treatment which gives an approximation describing the evolution under self-gravity of a lattice perturbed from…
The relation between the results of cosmological N-body simulations, and the continuum theoretical models they simulate, is currently not understood in a way which allows a quantification of N dependent effects. In this first of a series of…
The gravitationally-driven evolution of cold dark matter dominates the formation of structure in the Universe over a wide range of length scales. While the longest scales can be treated by perturbation theory, a fully quantitative…
The effects of discreteness arising from the use of the N-body method on the accuracy of simulations of cosmological structure formation are not currently well understood. After a discussion of how the relevant discretisation parameters…
This is the first in a series of papers devoted to fully general-relativistic $N$-body simulations applied to late-time cosmology. The purpose of this paper is to present the combination of a numerical relativity scheme, discretization…
The evolution of closed gravitational systems is studied by means of $N$-body simulations. This, as well as being interesting in its own right, provides insight into the dynamical and statistical mechanical properties of gravitational…
We explore some of the effects that discreteness and two-body scattering may have on N-body simulations with ``realistic'' cosmological initial conditions. We use an identical subset of particles from the initial conditions for a $128^3$…
We critically examine how the evolution of the matter density field in cosmological simulations is affected by details of setting up initial conditions. We show that it is non-trivial to realise an initial distribution of matter in…
This work discusses the main analogies and differences between the deterministic approach underlying most cosmological N-body simulations and the probabilistic interpretation of the problem that is often considered in mathematics and…
The determination of the resolution of cosmological N-body simulations, i.e., the range of scales in which quantities measured in them represent accurately the continuum limit, is an important open question. We address it here using…
Self-gravitating systems have acquired growing interest in statistical mechanics, due to the peculiarities of the 1/r potential. Indeed, the usual approach of statistical mechanics cannot be applied to a system of many point particles…
We study, using $N$-body simulation, the shape evolution in gravitational collapse of cold uniform spherical system. The central interest is on how the deviation from spherical symmetry depends on particle number $N$. By revisit of the…
We apply a recently developed perturbative formalism which describes the evolution under their self-gravity of particles displaced from a perfect lattice to quantify precisely, up to shell crossing, the effects of discreteness in…
By means of numerical simulations we study the radial-orbit instability in anisotropic self-gravitating $N-$body systems under the effect of noise. We find that the presence of additive or multiplicative noise has a different effect on the…
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…
Wang and White (2007) have discussed some problems with N-body simulation methods. These problems are a special case of a more general problem which has been largely unacknowledged for approximately 25 years, and affects results of all dark…