Dynamics of finite and infinite self-gravitating systems

by Michael Joyce (Laboratoire de Physique Nucleaire et des Hautes Energies, Université Paris VI)

Friday 26 Feb 2010, 14:15 → 15:15 Europe/Zurich

Univ. de Geneve, Auditoire Stueckelberg, 24 quai E. Ansermet, CH-1211 Genève 4

Despite extensive numerical simulation over the last few decades in astrophysics and cosmology, many fundamental questions about the evolution of classical particles interacting only by Newtonian gravity remain open. In this talk I will first review some of the basic analytical and numerical results about such systems, placing them in the more general context of long range interacting systems. I will then introduce and report results of studies of one dimensional toy models for these systems which allow one to study in a very controlled way some of the open issues.