Relaxation-driven binary mergers

Details Relaxation-driven binary mergers Relaxation-driven binary mergers

Jan 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992apj...384...15g&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 384, Jan. 1, 1992, p. 15-34.

Physics

4

Celestial Mechanics, Galactic Clusters, Relaxation (Mechanics), Many Body Problem, Orbit Decay, Stellar Physics

Scientific paper

N-body integrations are used to study the merging of two subclusters in the limit where relaxation effects are significant. Relaxation can speed up the orbital decay relative to the prediction of the standard dynamical friction formula, essentially by increasing the density of halo particles. The numerically determined decay time is 4-40 times shorter than the predicted value, and its scaling with the distance between the clumps disagrees with the standard prediction. It is shown that the effect can be explained through a combination of relaxation-induced halo growth and ordinary dynamical friction, and a semianalytic model is presented that accounts for the main features observed in these simulations. This model is used to estimate the minimum number of particles required for relaxation to have a negligible impact on the orbical decay (between 100,000 and 1,000,000). Various measures of the evolution of substructure are described and compared.

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