Abstract:

The formation of self-gravitating systems is studied by simulating the collapse of a set of N particles which are generated from several distribution functions. We first establish that the results of such simulations depend on N for small values of N. We complete a previous work by Aguilar & Merritt concerning the morphological segregation between spherical and elliptical equilibria. We find and interpret two new segregations: one concerns the equilibrium core size and the other the equilibrium temperature. All these features are used to explain some of the global properties of self-gravitating objects: origin of globular clusters and central black hole or shape of elliptical galaxies.

Keywords: methods: numerical; methods: N-body simulations; globular clusters: general; galaxies: formation

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07294.x

Affiliations: 1: École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées, Unité de Mathématiques Appliquées, 32 Bd Victor, 75015 Paris, France