相关论文: Statistical Mechanics of Gravitational Systems wit…
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…
The thermodynamic behaviour of self-gravitating $N$-body systems has been worked out by borrowing a standard method from Molecular Dynamics: the time averages of suitable quantities are numerically computed along the dynamical trajectories…
This work is devoted to the thermodynamics of gravitational clustering, a collective phenomenon with a great relevance in the $N$-body cosmological problem. We study a classical self-gravitating gas of identical non-relativistic particles…
This paper summarises a number of new, potentially significant, results, obtained recently by the author and his collaborators, which impact on various issues related to the gravitational N-body problem, both Newtonianly and in the context…
The gravitational interaction among bodies orbiting in a spherical potential leads to the rapid relaxation of the orbital planes' distribution, a process called vector resonant relaxation. We examine the statistical equilibrium of this…
Resonant relaxation has been discussed as an efficient process that changes the angular momenta of stars orbiting around a central supermassive black hole due to the fluctuating gravitational field of the stellar cluster. Other spherical…
Using the quantum Hamiltonian for a gravitational system with boundary, we find the partition function and derive the resulting thermodynamics. The Hamiltonian is the boundary term required by functional differentiability of the action for…
We describe the dynamics and thermodynamics of collisionless particle disks orbiting a massive central body, in the case where the disk mass is small compared to the central mass, the self-gravity of the disk dominates the non-Keplerian…
We study the relaxation towards thermodynamical equilibrium of a 1-D gravitational system. This OSC model shows a series of critical energies $E_{cn}$ where new equilibria appear and we focus on the homogeneous ($n=0$), one-peak ($n=\pm 1$)…
One of the fundamental aspects of statistical behaviour in many-body systems is exponential divergence of neighbouring orbits, which is often discussed in terms of Liapounov exponents. Here we study this topic for the classical…
Theory and simulations are used to study collisionless relaxation of a gravitational $N$-body system. It is shown that when the initial one particle distribution function satisfies the virial condition -- potential energy is minus twice the…
We present a new approach to describe the dynamics of an isolated, gravitationally bound astronomical $N$-body system in the weak field and slow-motion approximation of the general theory of relativity. Celestial bodies are described using…
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…
Paper in honour of Freeman Dyson on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Normal N-body systems relax to equilibrium distributions in which classical kinetic energy components are 1/2 kT, but, when inter-particle forces are an inverse cubic…
We investigate the statistical equilibrium properties of a system of classical particles interacting via Newtonian gravity, enclosed in a three-dimensional spherical volume. Within a mean-field approximation, we derive an equation for the…
The role of thermodynamics in the evolution of systems evolving under purely gravitational forces is not completely established. Both the infinite range and singularity in the Newtonian force law preclude the use of standard techniques.…
We investigate the old problem of the fast relaxation of collisionless $N$-body systems which are collapsing or perturbed, emphasizing the importance of (non-collisional) discreteness effects. We integrate orbit ensembles in fixed external…
We study, using both theory and simulations, a system of self-gravitating sheets. A new statistical mechanics theory - free of any adjustable parameters - is derived to quantitatively predict the final stationary state achieved by this…
In non-relativistic mechanics the center of mass of an isolated system is easily separated out from the relative variables. For a N-body system these latter are usually described by a set of Jacobi normal coordinates, based on the…
Self-consistent N-body simulations are efficient tools to study galactic dynamics. However, using them to study individual trajectories (or ensembles) in detail can be challenging. Such orbital studies are important to shed light on global…