1998/10/27 by Antonino Del Popolo, A. Del Popolo, Del Popolo, A. +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9810435
16 pages Latex including 1 ps figures. Accepted for publication by Astronomy and Astrophysics
arxiv created 1998/10/27 · openalex publication_date 1998/10/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2019/06/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this paper we extend Chandrasekhar and von Neumann's analysis of the\nstatistics of the gravitational field to systems in which particles (e.g.\nstars, galaxies) are not homogeneously distributed. We derive a distribution\nfunction W(F,dF/dt) giving the joint probability that a test particle is\nsubject to a force F and an associated rate of change of F given by dF/dt. We\ncalculate the first moment of dF/dt to study the effects of inhomogenity on\ndynamical friction.\n