Systems with long range interactions present generically the formation of quasi-stationary long-lived non-equilibrium states. These states relax to Boltzmann equilibrium following a dynamics which is not well understood. In this paper we study this process in two-dimensional inhomogeneous self-gravitating systems. Using the Chandrasekhar -- or local -- approximation we write a simple approximate kinetic equation for the relaxation process, obtaining a Fokker -- Planck equation for the velocity distribution with explicit analytical diffusion coefficients. Performing molecular dynamics simulations and comparing them with the evolution predicted by the Fokker -- Planck equation, we observe a good agreement with the model for all the duration of the relaxation, from the formation of the quasi-stationary state to thermal equilibrium. We observe however an overestimate or underestimate of the relaxation rate of the particles with the slower or larger velocities respectively. It is due to systematic errors in estimating the velocities of the particles at the moment of the collisions, inherent to the Chandrasekhar approximation when applied to inhomogeneous systems. Theory and simulations give a scaling of the relaxation time proportional to the number of particles in the system.
We present the numerical study of the formation of spiral structure in the context of violent relaxation. Initial conditions are the out-of-equilibrium disks of self-gravitating particles in rigid rotation. By that mechanism, robust and non-stationary spiral arms can be formed within a few free-fall times by the shearing of the mass ejection following the collapse. With a closer look, we find different properties of the arms in connection with the initial configuration. The winding degree tends to increase with initial angular speed provided that a disk is thin. If disk surface is circular, bo…
We revisit the issue of relaxation to thermal equilibrium in the so-called "sheet model", i.e., particles in one dimension interacting by attractive forces independent of their separation. We show that this relaxation may be very clearly detected and characterized by following the evolution of order parameters defined by appropriately normalized moments of the phase space distribution which probe its entanglement in space and velocity coordinates. For a class of quasi-stationary states which result from the violent relaxation of rectangular waterbag initial conditions, characterized by their v…
Very long-term relaxation of harmonic 1D self-gravitating systems
Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg, CNRS UMR 7550（斯特拉斯堡天文台）；Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS and Sorbonne Université, UMR 7095（巴黎天体物理学研究所）；Sorbonne Université（索邦大学）；Kyung Hee University, Dept. of Astronomy & Space Science（庆熙大学天文与空间科学系）
In this Letter, we investigate the stability of the statistical equilibrium of spherically symmetric collisionless self-gravitating systems. By calculating the second variation of the entropy, we find that perturbations of the relevant physical quantities should be classified as long- and short-range perturbations, which correspond to the long- and short-range relaxation mechanisms, respectively. We show that the statistical equilibrium states of self-gravitating systems are neither maximum nor minimum, but complex saddle-point entropy states, and hence differ greatly from the case of ideal ga…
We study, using both theory and simulations, a system of self-gravitating sheets. A new statistical mechanics theory - free of any adjustable parameters - is derived to quantitatively predict the final stationary state achieved by this system after the process of collisionless relaxation is completed. The theory shows a very good agreement with the numerical simulations. The model sheds new light on the general mechanism of relaxation of self-gravitating systems and may help us to understand cold matter distribution in the Universe.
The evolution of self-gravitating systems, and long-range interacting systems more generally, from initial configurations far from dynamical equilibrium is often described as a simple two phase process: a first phase of violent relaxation bringing it to a quasi-stationary state in a few dynamical times, followed by a slow adiabatic evolution driven by collisional processes. In this context the complex spatial structure evident, e.g., in spiral galaxies is understood either in terms of instabilities of quasi-stationary states, or a result of dissipative non-gravitational interactions. We illust…
The long timescale evolution of a self-gravitating system is generically driven by two-body encounters. In many cases, the motion of the particles is primarily governed by the mean field potential. When this potential is integrable, particles move on nearly fixed orbits, which can be described in terms of angle-action variables. The mean field potential drives fast orbital motions (angles) whose associated orbits (actions) are adiabatically conserved on short dynamical timescales. The long-term stochastic evolution of the actions is driven by the potential fluctuations around the mean field an…
We propose a method to study the degeneracy of a trapped atomic gas of fermions through the relaxation of the motion of a test particle. In the degenerate regime, and for an energy of the test particle well below the Fermi energy, we show that the Fermi-Dirac statistics is responsible for a strong decrease of the relaxation rate. This method can be used to directly measure the temperature of the fermionic gas.
We revisit the dynamics of the one-dimensional self-gravitating sheets models. We show that homogeneous and non-homogeneous states have different ergodic properties. The former is non-ergodic and the one-particle distribution function has a zero collision term if a proper limit is taken for the periodic boundary conditions. Non-homogeneous states are ergodic in a time window of the order of the relaxation time to equilibrium, as similarly observe in other systems with a long range interaction. For the sheets model this relaxation time is much larger than other systems with long range interacti…
We determine an asymptotic expression of the blow-up time t_coll for self-gravitating Brownian particles or bacterial populations (chemotaxis) close to the critical point. We show that t_coll=t_{*}(eta-eta_c)^{-1/2} with t_{*}=0.91767702..., where eta represents the inverse temperature (for Brownian particles) or the mass (for bacterial colonies), and eta_c is the critical value of eta above which the system blows up. This result is in perfect agreement with the numerical solution of the Smoluchowski-Poisson system. We also determine the asymptotic expression of the relaxation time close but a…
Systems of particles with long range interactions present two important processes: first, the formation of out-of-equilibrium quasi-stationary states (QSS), and the collisional relaxation towards Maxwell-Boltzmann equilibrium in a much longer timescale. In this paper, we study the collisional relaxation in the Hamiltonian-Mean-Field model (HMF) using the appropriate kinetic equations for a system of $N$ particles at order $1/N$ : the Landau equation when collective effects are neglected and the Lenard-Balescu equation when they are taken into account. We derive explicit expressions for the dif…
The evolution of a self-gravitating system to a non-equilibrium steady state occurs through a process of violent relaxation. In the thermodynamic limit the dynamics of a many body system should be governed by the Vlasov equation. Recently, however, a question was raised regarding the validity of Vlasov equation during the process of violent relaxation. In this paper we will explore the entropy production during the relaxation process using N-body molecular dynamics simulations. We will show that the entropy production time grows as $N^α$, with $α> 0$ and in the limit $N \rightarrow \infty$, en…
We investigate the evolution of the phase-space distribution function around slightly perturbed stationary states and the process of violent relaxation in the context of the dissipationless collapse of an isolated spherical self-gravitating system. By means of the recently introduced symplectic coarse graining technique, we obtain an effective evolution equation that allows us to compute the scaling of the frequencies around a stationary state, as well as the damping times of Fourier modes of the distribution function, with the magnitude of the Fourier $k-$vectors themselves. We compare our an…
Certain thermal non-equilibrium situations, outside of the astrophysical realm, suggest that entropy production extrema, instead of entropy extrema, are related to stationary states. In an effort to better understand the evolution of collisionless self-gravitating systems, we investigate the role of entropy production and develop expressions for the entropy production rate in two particular statistical families that describe self-gravitating systems. From these entropy production descriptions, we derive the requirements for extremizing the entropy production rate in terms of specific forms for…
The collapse of an isolated, uniform and spherical cloud of self-gravitating particles represents a paradigmatic example of a relaxation process leading to the formation of a quasi-stationary state in virial equilibrium. We consider several N-body simulations of such a system, with the initial velocity dispersion as a free parameter. We show that there is a clear difference between structures formed when the initial virial ratio is b_0 =2K_0/W_0 < b_0^c ~ -1/2 and b_0> b_0^c. These two sets of initial conditions give rise respectively to a mild and violent relaxation occurring in about the sam…
We propose an association between the phase-space mixing level of a self-gravitating system and the indistinguishability of its constituents (stars or dark matter particles). This represents a refinement in the study of systems exhibiting incomplete violent relaxation. Within a combinatorial analysis similar to that of Lynden-Bell, we make use of this association to obtain a distribution function that deviates from the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, increasing its slope for high energies. Considering the smallness of the occupation numbers for large distances from the center of the system, we…
The present work analyzes perturbed potentials due to test mass that is added at the center of gravity of the non-singular equilibrium isothermal self-gravitating gases. We examine gravitational polarization in the infinite isothermal sheet, cylinder, and sphere, assuming that the systems are highly collisional and reach a new state of thermal equilibrium after perturbation. Under the assumptions, the isothermal sheet and cylinder amplify gravitational fields due to test sheet and line masses by 68 % and 53 % maximally. On the one hand, in the isothermal sphere, gravitational fields due to tes…
We discuss the dynamics and thermodynamics of the Hamiltonian Mean Field model (HMF) which is a prototypical system with long-range interactions. The HMF model can be seen as the one Fourier component of a one-dimensional self-gravitating system. Interestingly, it exhibits many features of real self-gravitating systems (violent relaxation, persistence of metaequilibrium states, slow collisional dynamics, phase transitions,...) while avoiding complicated problems posed by the singularity of the gravitational potential at short distances and by the absence of a large-scale confinement. We stress…
Self-gravitating systems are expected to reach a statistical equilibrium state either through collisional relaxation or violent collisionless relaxation. However, a maximum entropy state does not always exist and the system may undergo a ``gravothermal catastrophe'': it can achieve ever increasing values of entropy by developing a dense and hot ``core'' surrounded by a low density ``halo''. In this paper, we study the phase transition between ``equilibrium'' states and ``collapsed'' states with the aid of a simple relaxation equation [Chavanis, Sommeria and Robert, Astrophys. J. 471, 385 (1996…
After a general overview of some features of the relaxation dynamics of the Hamiltonian Mean Field model, its equilibrium thermodynamic properties are used to rephrase the out-of-equilibrium regime for energies below the critical point $u_{c}=0.75$ in terms of an effective dynamical coexistence between a clustered and a gaseous phases, whose existence could be associated to the large relaxation times observed when $u_{1}<u<u_{c}$, with $u_{1}=0.5$. Starting from the hypothesis that the \textit{parametric resonance} is the microscopic mechanism allowing the energetic interchange between the par…
We study quasi-stationary states (QSS) resulting from violent relaxation in the one-dimensional self-gravitating "sheet model", revisiting in particular the question of the adequacy of the theory of Lynden-Bell (LB) to describe them. For "waterbag" initial conditions characterized by a single phase space density, the prediction of this theory is, in this model, a function of only one parameter, which can conveniently be chosen to be the ratio of the energy to that in the degenerate limit. Studying a class of such initial conditions in which the shape of the initial waterbag is varied, we find …
We study, using both theory and molecular dynamics simulations, the relaxation dynamics of a microcanonical two dimensional self-gravitating system. After a sufficiently large time, a gravitational cluster of N particles relaxes to the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. The time to reach the thermodynamic equilibrium, however, scales with the number of particles. In the thermodynamic limit, $N\to\infty$ at fixed total mass, equilibrium state is never reached and the system becomes trapped in a non-ergodic stationary state. An analytical theory is presented which allows us to quantitatively descri…
We present an effective evolution equation for a coarse-grained distribution function of a long-range-interacting system preserving the symplectic structure of the non-collisional Boltzmann, or Vlasov, equation. We first derive a general form of such an equation based on symmetry considerations only. Then, we explicitly derive the equation for one-dimensional systems, finding that it has the form predicted on general grounds. Finally, we use such an equation to predict the dependence of the damping times on the coarse-graining scale and numerically check it for some one-dimensional models, inc…
(abbreviated) The statistical mechanics of self-gravitating systems is a long-held puzzle. In this work, we employ a phenomenological entropy form of ideal gas, first proposed by White & Narayan, to revisit this issue. By calculating the first-order variation of the entropy, subject to the mass- and energy-conservation constraints, we obtain an entropy stationary equation. Incorporated with the Jeans equation, and by specifying some functional form for the anisotropy parameter beta, we numerically solve the two equations, and demonstrate that the velocity anisotropy parameter plays an importan…
With particular attention to the recently postulated introduction of a non-extensive generalization of Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics, we study the long-term stellar dynamical evolution of self-gravitating systems on timescales much longer than the two-body relaxation time. In a self-gravitating N-body system confined in an adiabatic wall, we show that the quasi-equilibrium sequence arising from the Tsallis entropy, so-called stellar polytropes, plays an important role in characterizing the transient states away from the Boltzmann-Gibbs equilibrium state.
The secular evolution of an infinitely thin tepid isolated galactic disc made of a finite number of particles is investigated using the inhomogeneous Balescu-Lenard equation expressed in terms of angle-action variables. The matrix method is implemented numerically in order to model the induced gravitational polarization. Special care is taken to account for the amplification of potential fluctuations of mutually resonant orbits and the unwinding of the induced swing amplified transients. Quantitative comparisons with ${N-}$body simulations yield consistent scalings with the number of particles…
We study the relaxation towards thermodynamical equilibrium of a 1-D gravitational system. This OSC model shows a series of critical energies $E_{cn}$ where new equilibria appear and we focus on the homogeneous ($n=0$), one-peak ($n=\pm 1$) and two-peak ($n=2$) states. Using numerical simulations we investigate the relaxation to the stable equilibrium $n=\pm 1$ of this $N-$body system starting from initial conditions defined by equilibria $n=0$ and $n=2$. We find that in a fashion similar to other long-range systems the relaxation involves a fast violent relaxation phase followed by a slow col…
Relaxation processes in collisionless dynamics lead to peculiar behavior in systems with long-range interactions such as self-gravitating systems, non-neutral plasmas and wave-particle systems. These systems, adequately described by the Vlasov equation, present quasi-stationary states (QSS), i.e. long lasting intermediate stages of the dynamics that occur after a short significant evolution called "violent relaxation". The nature of the relaxation, in the absence of collisions, is not yet fully understood. We demonstrate in this article the occurrence of stretching and folding behavior in nume…
We consider the dynamics of a gas of free bosons within a semi-classical Fokker-Planck equation for which we give a physical justification. In this context, we find a striking similarity between the Bose-Einstein condensation in the canonical ensemble, and the gravitational collapse of a gas of classical self-gravitating Brownian particles. The paper is mainly devoted to the complete study of the Bose-Einstein ``collapse'' within this model. We find that at the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature $T_c$, the chemical potential $μ(t)$ vanishes exponentially with a universal rate that we compu…
Kinetics of collapse and explosion transitions in microcanonical self-gravitating ensembles is analyzed. A system of point particles interacting via an attractive soft Coulomb potential and confined to a spherical container is considered. We observed that for 100--200 particles collapse takes $10^3$ -- $10^4$ particle crossing times to complete, i. e., it is by 2-3 orders of magnitude slower than velocity relaxation. In addition, it is found that the collapse time decreases rapidly with the increase of the softcore radius. We found that such an anomalously long collapse time is caused by the s…
Fractal structures and non-Gaussian velocity distributions are characteristic properties commonly observed in virialized self-gravitating systems such as galaxies or interstellar molecular clouds. We study the origin of these properties using the one-dimensional ring model which we newly propose in this paper. In this simple model, $N$ particles are moving, on a circular ring fixed in the three dimensional space, with mutual interaction of gravity. This model is suitable for accurate symplectic integration method by which we find the phase transition in this system from extended-phase to colla…
The third and fourth degree collisional moments for $d$-dimensional inelastic Maxwell models are exactly evaluated in terms of the velocity moments, with explicit expressions for the associated eigenvalues and cross coefficients as functions of the coefficient of normal restitution. The results are applied to the analysis of the time evolution of the moments (scaled with the thermal speed) in the free cooling problem. It is observed that the characteristic relaxation time toward the homogeneous cooling state decreases as the anisotropy of the corresponding moment increases. In particular, in c…
The damping of hot giant dipole resonances is investigated. The contribution of surface scattering is compared with the contribution from interparticle collisions. A unified response function is presented which includes surface damping as well as collisional damping. The surface damping enters the response via the Lyapunov exponent and the collisional damping via the relaxation time. The former is calculated for different shape deformations of quadrupole and octupole type. The surface as well as the collisional contribution each reproduce almost the experimental value, therefore we propose a p…
The thermal transport properties of a two dimensional Fermi gas are explored, for the full range of temperatures and densities. The heat flux is established by solving the Uehling-Uhlebeck equation using a relaxation approximation given by Marle's collisional kernel and considering the temperature and chemical potential gradients as independent thermodynamic forces. It is shown that the corresponding transport coefficients are proportional to each other, which leads to the possibility of defining a generalized thermal force and a single transport coefficient. The behavior of such conductivity …
We study the relaxation of a test particle immersed in a bath of field particles interacting via weak long-range forces. To order 1/N in the $N\to +\infty$ limit, the velocity distribution of the test particle satisfies a Fokker-Planck equation whose form is related to the Landau and Lenard-Balescu equations in plasma physics. We provide explict expressions for the diffusion coefficient and friction force in the case where the velocity distribution of the field particles is isotropic. We consider (i) various dimensions of space $d=3,2$ and 1 (ii) a discret spectrum of masses among the particle…
