On gravothermal oscillations

Physics

Scientific paper

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Globular Clusters, Gravitational Collapse, Oscillations, Star Clusters, Stellar Physics, Analogies, Differential Equations, Energy Sources, Linear Systems, Spheres, Stellar Models, Systems Stability

Scientific paper

Gravothermal oscillations of postcollapse star clusters are investigated by studying a self-gravitating, conducting gas sphere. It is shown that self-similar solutions can be constructed if the energy generation term has an appropriate functional form. Solutions are obtained for energy generation by binaries created in three-body processes. The solutions have a single dimensionless parameter which can be related to the total number of stars N or to the central concentration. The linear stability of the solutions is studied, and it is found that they are stable for N less than about 7000, overstable for N between 7000 and 40,000, and unstable for larger N. For very large N, the instability reduces to the gravothermal instability of an infinite isothermal sphere. The amplitude of nonlinear gravothermal oscillations is estimated and found to increase with N. Implications for globular clusters and for N-body simulations are discussed.

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