Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2009-12-12
MNRAS416:1181-1190, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
11 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Scientific paper
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19122.x
Dynamical friction is a fundamental and important phenomenon in astrophysics. The Chandrasekhar formula is a well-known analytical estimation of the effect. However, current astrophysicists have realized that the formula is not correct in some cases because of several approximations dared in the formulation and/or complex non-linearities in the real universe. For example, it has been indicated that the dynamical friction doesn't work in cored density profiles (constant density in the central region) despite that the Chandrasekhar formula predicts drag force even in the constant densities. In the former half of this paper, I discuss by N-body simulations that many-body interactions are also important in actual dynamical friction though derivation of the Chandrasekhar formula is based on the assumption of two-body interaction. In the simulation, the many-body interactions are caused by a very small number of field particles co-rotating with a perturber. However, the contribution from the many-body interactions accounts for a non-negligible fraction of the actual dynamical friction. In the latter half, I discuss why the cored profiles suppress the dynamical friction. One possible explanation is that corrective effect of the many-body interactions drive orbital motion of the perturber. The cessation of dynamical friction by this corrective effect would be feasible even in shallow cusp density profiles although the shallow cusp may evolve into a constant density.
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