Dynamical friction on radial orbits.

Details Dynamical friction on radial orbits. Dynamical friction on radial orbits.

Dec 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997apl%26c..36...47c&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Letters and Communications, Vol. 36, Nos. 1 - 6, p. 47 - 51

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

1

Stellar Systems: Dynamical Friction, Stellar Systems: N-Body Simulations

Scientific paper

Using N-body simulations, the authors probe the effects of dynamical friction of a softended point-mass secondary object falling, on a nearly radial orbit, onto a cuspy many-body primary object, with 1 to 100 times its mass. They compare the results with the equivalent two body-problem, for which they compute exactly the interaction potential. Not only does the dissipation of orbital energy occur principally at pericenter, but the effective strength of dynamical friction, measured as an effective instantaneous Coulomb logarithm, is also maximum at pericenter. Averaging over the orbit, the effective Coulomb logarithm is of order unity, increasing with the initial orbital angular momentum of the secondary, and decreasing with the ratio of secondary to primary mass, but less so than usually assumed.

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