Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Aug 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996apj...466..724g&link_type=abstract
Astrophysical Journal v.466, p.724
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
5
Galaxies: Kinematics And Dynamics, Galaxies: Structure, Methods: Numerical
Scientific paper
Softening of the gravitational potential in n-body simulations, introduced as a modification to Newtonian gravity on the small scale, can affect the large-scale, global dynamics of computer models of galaxies. These effects arise because softening modifies the gravitational binding energy and changes the equilibrium configuration of self-gravitating systems. In this paper we give the analytic expressions for the "softened" gravitational potential energy of some example systems. We then present a corrected form of the scalar virial theorem, which describes the relationship between potential and kinetic energies in equilibrium galaxies. It is important to understand these phenomena when conducting numerical experiments on galaxies. It is often desired to numerically construct and study an equilibrium galaxy derived from an analytic model. We show by example that the use of softening can lead to global phenomena that cannot be discussed solely in terms of Newtonian gravity. As an example, we examine numerically the behavior of a spherical galaxy undergoing fundamental mode oscillations as the softening length is varied.
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