Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:28:52.640Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Canonical Ensemble Description of Three-body Disruption

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

J. J. Monaghan*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Monash University

Extract

The statistical theory of strong three-body interactions (Monaghan 1976a, b, Nash and Monaghan 1978) is based on the assumption that the motion of the system in phase space is ergodic, and that the energy and angular momentum are the only isolating integrals. The a priori phase space is infinite because the system is not confined by walls, but this is only a formal difficulty since the numerical calculations show that the motion takes place in a finite region of ordinary space and this fact can be incorporated in the statistical description. The probability density of the system in phase space is essentially Gibb’s Micro-Canonical ensemble.

Type
Contributions
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Monaghan, J. J., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 176, 63, (1976).Google Scholar
Monaghan, J. J., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 177, 583, (1976).Google Scholar
Nash, P. E., and Monaghan, J. J., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 184, 119, (1978).Google Scholar
Nash, P. E., and Monaghan, J. J., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., A Statistical Theory for the Disruption of Four Body Systems, 1980.Google Scholar
Standish, E. M., Astron. and Astrophys., 21, 185, (1972).Google Scholar
Valtonen, M. J., Astrophys. and Space Sci., 42, 331, (1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar