Related papers: The search for the lost attractor
Self-gravitating systems are expected to reach a statistical equilibrium state either through collisional relaxation or violent collisionless relaxation. However, a maximum entropy state does not always exist and the system may undergo a…
The dynamical justifications which lie at the basis of an effective Statistical Mechanics for self gravitating systems are formulated, analyzing some among the well known obstacles thought to prevent a rigorous Statistical treatment. It is…
Machine learning can be a powerful tool to discover new signal types in astronomical data. We here apply it to search for long-duration transient gravitational waves triggered by pulsar glitches, which could yield physical insight into the…
We describe results from large numbers of $N$-body simulations containing from $250$ to $1000$ stars each. The distribution of stellar masses is a power law, and the systems are isolated. While the collapse of the core exhibits the expected…
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…
Stellar dynamical model globular clusters are introduced into reconstituted versions of the dark matter halos of the Via-Lactea II (VL-2) simulation to follow the star cluster tidal mass loss and stellar stream formation. The clusters…
Understanding the evolution of stellar clusters in an evolving tidal field is critical for studying the disruption of stellar clusters in a cosmological context. We systematically characterise the response of stellar clusters to tidal…
The presence of protostellar disks can greatly increase the dissipation during close stellar encounters, leading to the formation of a significant population of binaries during the initial collapse and virialization of a cluster. We have…
The Milky Way contains several distinct old stellar components that provide a fossil record of its formation. We can understand their spatial distribution and kinematics in a hierarchical formation scenario by associating the proto-galactic…
We review what has been learned recently using N-body simulations about the evolution of globular clusters. While simulations of star clusters have become more realistic, and now include the evolution of single and binary stars, the…
We study, using both theory and molecular dynamics simulations, the relaxation dynamics of a microcanonical two dimensional self-gravitating system. After a sufficiently large time, a gravitational cluster of N particles relaxes to the…
Close to a saddle-node bifurcation, when two invariant solutions collide and disappear, the behavior of a dynamical system can closely resemble that of a solution which is no longer present at the chosen parameter value. For bifurcating…
Cosmological simulations of structure formation predict that galaxies are dramatically modified by galaxy harassment during the assembly of galaxy clusters, losing a substantial fraction of their stellar mass which today must be in the form…
This paper presents and analyses statistical results from a large number of $N$-body simulations of isolated systems with equal masses, in which $250\le N\le 2000$. It concentrates on the phase starting around the end of core collapse, when…
The time irreversibility and fast relaxation of collapsing $N$-body gravitating systems (as opposed to the time reversibility of the equations of motion for individual stars or particles) are traditionally attributed to information loss due…
The orbital decay and tidal disruption of a star cluster in a galaxy is studied in an analytical manner. Owing to dynamical friction, the star cluster spirals in toward the center of the galaxy. Simultaneously, the galactic tidal field…
A revision of Stod\{'o}{\l}kiewicz's Monte Carlo code is used to simulate evolution of large star clusters. A survey of the evolution of N-body systems influenced by the tidal field of a parent galaxy and by stellar evolution is presented.…
The dynamics of the gravitational collapse is examined in the realm of string based formalism of D-branes that encompass General Relativity as a low energy limit. A complete analytical solution is given to the spherically symmetric collapse…
We use a semianalytic approach that is calibrated to N-body simulations to study the evolution of self-interacting dark matter cores in galaxies. We demarcate the regime where the temporal evolution of the core density follows a…
We study the dynamical evolution of idealised stellar systems by averaging results from many $N$-body simulations, each having modest numbers of stars. For isolated systems with stars of uniform mass, we discuss aspects of evolution up to…