Related papers: Analytic solution to the dynamical friction acting…
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…
In a gaseous medium, dynamical friction (DF) reaches a maximum when the orbital speed of a (point-like) perturber moving on a circular orbit is close to the sound speed. Therefore, in a quasi-steady state, eccentric orbits of perturbers…
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 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…
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…
Dynamical friction arises from the interaction of a perturber and the gravitational wake it excites in the ambient medium. We study the effects of the presence of a boundary on dynamical friction by studying analytically the interaction of…
Recent work has suggested that the net gravitational force acting on a massive and luminous perturber travelling through a gaseous and opaque medium can have same direction as the perturber's motion (an effect sometimes called negative…
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…
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…
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 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,…
We use three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the nonlinear gravitational responses of gas to, and the resulting drag forces on, very massive perturbers moving on circular orbits. This work extends our previous studies…
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…
We consider the gravitational force exerted on a point-like perturber of mass $M$ travelling within a uniform gaseous, opaque medium at constant velocity $V$. The perturber irradiates the surrounding gas with luminosity $L$. The diffusion…
Dynamical friction is typically regarded a secular process, in which the subject ('perturber') evolves very slowly (secular approximation), and has been introduced to the host over a long time (adiabatic approximation). These assumptions…
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…
We compute the Gaseous Dynamical Friction (GDF) force experienced by massive perturbers on elliptical Keplerian orbits. In this paper, we investigate the density wake morphology, dynamical friction force, and secular orbital evolution for…
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…
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…
We examine the origin of dynamical friction using a non-perturbative, orbit-based approach. Unlike the standard perturbative approach, in which dynamical friction arises from the LBK torque due to pure resonances, this alternative,…