Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Feb 1985
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1985ap%26ss.109..215k&link_type=abstract
Astrophysics and Space Science (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 109, no. 2, Feb. 1985, p. 215-230. NSF-supported research.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
2
Celestial Mechanics, Star Clusters, Stellar Evolution, Stellar Motions, Stellar Systems, Collisions, Orbital Mechanics, Relativistic Particles
Scientific paper
Kinetic equations which are valid for spherically-symmetric Newtonian systems are formulatead to describe the destruction of stars via direct physical collisions, characterized by a constant geometric cross-section. An orbit averaging prescription is implemented to obtain a simpler kinetic equation for the evolution of a distribution function that depends only upon the energy, angular momentum, and time. The analysis is specialized to the case of systems in which the typical radial velocities are much greater than the tangential velocities, so that the stars are approximated as having zero-angular momentum. As a concrete example, an energy-dependent collision time-scale is evaluated for systems which, in the absence of collisions, are characterized by a Gaussian distribution of radial velocities. The case of purely radial orbits is considered, and asymptotic forms are obtained for the case of an isotropic Maxwellian distribution.
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