2008/01/31 by N. T. Faber, N.T. Faber, C. M. Boily +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13041.x
17 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2008/02/02 · openalex publication_date 2008/03/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
We implement an efficient method to quantify time-dependent orbital complexity in gravitational N-body simulations. The technique, which we name DWaTIM, is based on a discrete wavelet transform of velocity orbital time-series. The wavelet power spectrum is used to measure trends in complexity continuously in time. We apply the method to the test cases N= 3 Pythagorean configuration and a perturbed N= 5 Caledonian configuration. The method recovers the well-known time-dependent complexity of the dynamics in these small-N problems. We then apply the technique to an equal-mass collisional N= 256 body simulation run through core-collapse. We find that a majority of stars evolve on relatively complex orbits up to the time when the first hard binary forms, whereas after core-collapse, less complex orbits are found on the whole as a result of expanding mass shells.