Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2003-02-24
New Astron. 8 (2003) 629-644
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
New Astronomy, accepted
Scientific paper
10.1016/S1384-1076(03)00051-4
In a gravitational virialized bound system built up of two components, one of which is embedded in the other, the Clausius' virial energy of one subcomponent is not, in general, equal to its total potential energy, as occurs in a single system without external forces. This is the main reason for the presence, in the case of two non-coinciding concentric spheroidal subsystems, of a minimum (in absolute value) in the Clausius' virial of the inner component B, when it assumes a special configuration characterized by a value of its semi-major axis we have named "tidal radius". The physical meaning, connected with its appearance, is to introduce a scale length on the gravity field of the inner subsystem, which is induced from the outer one. Its relevance in the galaxy dynamics has been stressed by demonstrating that some of the main features of the Fundamental Plane may follow as consequence of its existence. More physical insight into the dynamics of a two component system may be got by looking at the location of this scale length inside the plots of the potential energies of each subsystem and of the whole system and by also taking into account the trend of the anti-symmetric residual-energy, that is the difference between the tidal and the interaction-energy of each component. Some thermodynamical arguments related to the inner component are also added to prove as special is the "tidal radius configuration". Moreover the role of the divergency at the center of the two subsystems in obtaining this scale length is considered. For the sake of simplicity the analysis has been performed in the case of a frozen external component even if this constraint does not appear to be too relevant in order to preserve the main results.
Marmo Chiara
Secco Luigi
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