N-body chaos, phase-space transport and relaxation in numerical simulations. Issue Volume 14:Issue S351(2019) (May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Di Cintio, Pierfrancesco; Casetti, Lapo
• Editors: Bragaglia, Angela; Davies, Melvyn; Sills, Alison; Vesperini, Enrico
• Is Part Of: Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union. Volume 14:Issue S351(2019)
• Page Start: 426
• Page End: 429
• Publication Date: 2019-05
• Subjects: stellar dynamics, -- galaxies: kinematics and dynamics, -- methods: n-body simulations, -- diffusion.; Astronomy -- Congresses; Astronomy -- Periodicals; 520
• DOI: 10.1017/S1743921319006744
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1743-9213

Abstract

Abstract: Using direct N -body simulations of self-gravitating systems we study the dependence of dynamical chaos on the system size N . We find that the N -body chaos quantified in terms of the largest Lyapunov exponent Λmax decreases with N . The values of its inverse (the so-called Lyapunov time t λ ) are found to be smaller than the two-body collisional relaxation time but larger than the typical violent relaxation time, thus suggesting the existence of another collective time scale connected to many-body chaos.